Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death
by LuckyFelix
Summary: Death is usually a simple thing, but when Harry Potter is the one dying it's bound to get complicated. So Death himself must get involved, and he hasn't had this much fun in years. HP/HG, TimeTravel, AU end to 5th Year, Rated T just to be safe.
1. A Timely Death

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter, I'm not J.K. Rowling, I'm just overly bored.

**Author's Note:** Just a quick note, don't expect too quick and too often an update to this story. I'm currently working on another but this idea popped into my head and I decided I had better write some of it down or else it'd just keep annoying me. The other story, tentatively titled _Harry Potter and the Power of Choice_ is the one I'm focusing on the most. Don't expect it to be published any time soon though, I'm waiting until I've got it mostly finished up.

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_By LuckyFelix_

_**Chapter One: A Timely Death**_

Harry Potter was confused, just moments ago he'd been in the middle of a fight for his life with Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic and now all the sudden he was, well, he didn't quite know where he was.

He had, moments ago, opened his eyes upon feeling no pain and hearing no noise, but he met naught but bright white light and quickly closed his eyes. On the whole, he thought it was a good decision. Especially when he realized that the warm soft something he was holding was his best friend, Hermione Granger.

A very naked Hermione Granger.

Being held next to his own very naked self.

Yes, all in all, closed eyes are a good thing. A very good thing. Seeing that would have just been weird, after all.

Of course, his next question was just how he had gone from fighting Death Eaters to being in a very bright room holding a very naked Hermione while devoid of clothing himself. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, before his mind could conjure up what was sure to be a very terrifying and embarrassing, yet oddly arousing, conclusion, Hermione awoke.

The thought now came to Harry that perhaps he should have let go of Hermione, instead of continuing to hold her close to him. Usually the shy and awkward teen would do just that, so why did he not follow what should have been a natural instinct this time?

Well, she was naked, and she is a girl. Yes, definitely a girl, he could feel her girlishness beneath his left hand, which he noted seemed happy to have become acquainted with his hand.

Odd.

All too soon though the silence was broken.

"Harry!" Hermione shouted, no doubt panicked and not yet realizing their lack of clothing. "Oh Harry, what happened? Where are we, are you..why are.."

Ah, there it was, she's noticed. Sharp girl, that Hermione.

Harry made a rather dramatic act out of appearing to only just awaken, "Hermione? What happened, where..." but before he could finish, another voice cut him off.

"Aww, young love, it is in my estimation one of the most beautiful things in the universe. You're an adorable couple. Adorable, I say."

"Huh?" was the eloquent response, which a smug Harry rather thought beat Hermione's "Eek!"

The two teens turned towards the source of the voice, valiantly ignoring each others nakedness and the brightness of wherever they were. The source turned out to be a rather tall and lean man with shoulder length jet black hair that framed his pale but handsome face. His robes, like his hair and eyes, were of the blackest black. Harry thought he would look like a rather cheerful fellow if it were not for his eyes, which were black and seemed devoid of all life and emotion.

"Ah, yes, I've not yet introduced myself? I am Death."

Silence.

"Are you aware that you're naked?"

Silence.

"Well, I can hardly blame you, it feels nice to prance about in the nude every so often. Liberating, don't you think? Shall I divest of my own robes?"

"No! No, er, I mean, we were just looking for our own clothing. We, uh.." however he didn't finish, as suddenly a pair of black robes appeared before the two teens who quickly put them on with no small amount of blushing.

"Better? Good good, well, welcome to, ah, here," said Death cheerfully. Harry rather thought Death would be more sombre and not so cheery. It was actually more frightening this way.

"Well, of course you are interested in why you are, in fact, here, are you not?" he received two nods, "Well, you died quite spectacularly, congratulation on that by the way, and now I'm here to decide what to do with you."

Harry wondered briefly if he should be proud that he died spectacularly, but decided against it.

"Sir, what happened exactly?" That was why he liked having Hermione around, she asked smart questions.

"Oh, well, you were hit with what I believe you lot call the 'Killing Curse', yes? Unfortunately, or fortunately I suppose, the curses hit after you had been banished quite forcefully into a large shelf of Time-Turners, I believe you are familiar, yeah?" Hermione nodded the affirmative, and he continued his cheery account of their death.

"Well, to make an extremely complex and utterly worthless explanation quite short, the Time-Turners broke and showered you with their rather unique contents, Time Dust. The ambient magic throughout the room, in addition to several other spells flying about in the area, charged the Time Dust just as the Killing Curses were coming in from one Mrs. Bellatrix Lestrange and Mr. Antonin Dolohov. The curse, of course, hit you both but they hit just as your were, ah, phasing out for lack of a better term."

Well, Death seemed rather entertained at least.

"The resulting magical discharge created quite an explosion, killing Mrs. Lestrange and Mr. Dolohov, as well as Messrs Augustus Rookwood and Neville Longbottom," he finished happily.

"N..Neville's dead?" Hermione asked tearfully, Harry was feeling too guilty to speak. Now he'd gotten not only himself, but two of his friends killed.

"Oh yes, most definitely, already sent the lad on."

"On?"

"Yes, on. The afterlife, the next great adventure, heaven, hell, whatever you want to call it."

"And where are we, Sir?" she asked fearfully.

"Ah, now that is a very good question Ms. Granger. At the moment your are neither here nor there, neither alive nor dead, neither the past nor future, and so on and so forth. I've yet to decide what to do with you, hence why we're all here enjoying this delightful discussion." Harry thought that he was likely the only one enjoying it, but chose not to point that out. He was Death, after all.

"So..." asked Harry, not really knowing what to say but hoping he'd pick up on it.

"Indeed indeed, on to business. First of all, I don't like having people, ah, here. So we need to decide what to do with you, send you back to live out your days or allow you to pass beyond the Veil, so to speak. Normally I'd just send you on, but there are, ah, complications."

"What complications, Sir?"

"Well Ms. Granger, it doesn't really come from you as much as your companion. Primarily the fact that I would quite like it if he would defeat Mr. Tom Riddle, as I absolutely loath those who refuse to die when they ought to. Unfortunately, I can't simply go into the mortal realm and kill him myself, or I would have. Not to mention going into the mortal realm never ends well. Blasted Peverell's, annoying little gits the lot of 'em."

Harry didn't know what he was mumbling about now, but he didn't have a clue what Death expected him to do about Voldemort. It's not like Harry had the power to actually defeat him, he'd only just survived him by luck and chance so far.

"...stick the Elder Wand right up his...ah, well, nevermind, nevermind. As I was saying, Mr. Riddle has used a rather ghastly method of cheating me, and I don't like being cheated. Thus I will need you, Mr. Potter, to do away with him. You recall that you came to the Ministry and retrieved a prophecy, yes? Well, that prophecy names you as the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord."

Harry and Hermione both stared at Death in shock, though a small part of Harry's mind accepted that he always knew this would be the case.

"Well, I'm not one to put a lot of stock into such things, but still, I think you've got it in you to do it. Besides, better to cover all my bases, yeah? So now the question is, where do I send you when I send you back?" he pondered while Harry's mind reeled and Hermione looked thoughtful.

"Um, Mr. Death, Sir, what do you mean where? Can't you just send us right back to where we were?" she asked, causing the lifeless black eyes of Death to study her for a moment.

"No. No, I don't think that'd be very fun. Not any fun at all. I suppose the real question is not where, but when. We can look at houses after we decide when," he stated before reverting to his pensive state. Harry and Hermione just stared at one another.

"You know," said Death, "The 1960's were a good time. Perhaps I should send you back to then, eh? Or maybe around 1980? Hmm, interesting, interesting. Yes, the 1980 should do, don't want to send you too far back after all, too many complications. Well, now that that's cleared up, where shall I send you, eh?"

Harry and Hermione just looked at him like he was a mad man. It's not often that Hermione can be rendered speechless, but it does happen he supposed.

"Oh, brilliant, brilliant, Godric's Hollow will do lovely. Beautiful little town, you'll love it."

A sudden crazy thought entered Harry's mind.

"Sir! Uh, what about, er, what about my parents?"

"What about them?" asked Death, a frown gracing his usually jovial features.

"Well, if we go back to Godric's Hollow in 1980, I could, uh, save them?" he half asked and half stated in a hopeful tone.

"Well, yes, you could.." admitted Death, his mood suddenly very serious, "but you fail to take into account the hundreds, perhaps thousands, that would die as a result. Your defeat of the Dark Lord, no matter how temporary, put a stop to his madness while he was at the height of his power. If he is allowed to continue, many will die. Are the lives of so many worth the lives of two people, no matter how great a pair they are?"

It was the first time Death had acted anything like what Harry and Hermione would have expected him to, sombre and very serious.

Harry, for his part, looked rather ashamed at having even thought of it, and merely shook his head. This seemed to be enough to brighten Death up, however, as he began asking them what they would need in their new life.

Now that Death had decided to put them in 1980 Godric's Hollow, he rambled on and on about what kind of house they would want and how it should be decorated. Harry and Hermione both seemed to still be trying to wrap their heads around the whole thing, and remained quiet.

"Well, come now kids, I can't very well do everything myself, can I? Hmmm, you know, you are rather young. I should make you older, it would look most peculiar otherwise, what with you two being married couple and all."

"WHAT!" screamed Harry and Hermione at the same time.

"Well, yeah, it would be the most logical way to explain your appearance together, not to mention your living together. Besides, you'll make an adorable couple, as I said before." Death seemed inordinately pleased to be playing match maker. Harry stared at him incredulously, though he vaguely noted that Hermione flushed and looked away, what was that about eh?

In a more serious tone Death continued, "You will both need each other if you are to continue on your path towards defeating the Dark Lord. Alone and friendless, Harry Potter, you are weak. Let me assure you that there is no power in the universe so great and terrible as that of love. It is this that you must harness if you wish to defeat Lord Voldemort, for it is something that he has never once experienced and does not understand."

Harry thought that he, too, didn't quite understand just what Death was going on about. What was he supposed to do, go give Voldemort a hug?

"You will come to understand, Harry Potter. Remember, I am Death, I have seen what power those who love possess, what deeds, both great and terrible, it can drive them to accomplish."

Apparently the mood had become too serious and sombre for Death, as he quickly clapped his hands and asked, "Now, what kind of pet would you like, eh? Might I suggest a nice augurey, hmm? No? A thestral perhaps? No? Lovely creature, really, you should get to know them. Fine, how do you feel about dragons, eh?"

Death seemed to think they needed a pet, or more, a magical familiar. Every house needs one in his view, but unfortunately Crookshanks and Hedwig were ruled out as potential familiars. The dragon idea was shot down, even after Death convinced Harry that he could make it so that he'd have full control of the dragon. Harry had been all for it then, but Hermione wouldn't allow it.

"C'mon Hermione! You heard him, we'd be able to control the dragon and everything, so he wouldn't be dangerous. Seriously, how many people can say they have a pet dragon? Really? It's just, so cool. And think of what Hagrid would say! He'd be so excited!"

Hermione however would not be convinced. Death's idea of a nice basilisk was thrown out quickly by Harry, despite Death's assertions that 'they really are cute little buggers, when they're not trying to kill you'. Harry and Hermione did learn that a basilisk has three eyelids, one to close their eyes completely, another so that they can look about without risk to anyone, and a final one that allows them to only petrify their victims. Of course, if they don't use any of the three then their stare kills, except in the case of their bonded master.

Hermione briefly entertained the idea of a pet Unicorn, but decided against it, as she didn't think such a creature should be a pet. A nundus was thrown out without any debate at all, save for a simple shrug from Death.

After some time, and a rather heated debate over a potential pet griffin, Hermione settled on having a pet kneazle. Death was able to talk her into a full kneazle this time, citing that their suspicious nature would help them detect any potential threats. The kneazle, which Death named Elpis, was grey with black and white speckles.

Harry had thought that would be their only pet until he saw Death starting at him with a thoughtful expression. Quite suddenly he smiled and clapped his hands causing a beautiful phoenix to appear suddenly.

"Ah, here Mr. Potter, a nice lovely phoenix. I think, yes, Persephone should work for her. If ever you have need of me, she may find me."

Harry just stared at the beautiful swan like creature in awe, she was even more beautiful than Fawkes in his opinion. Her beady but wise looking black eyes were surveying Harry, almost as if deciding if he was worthy or not. Her scarlet plumage was practically glowing, and like Fawkes she had long golden tail feathers, though he also noticed her wings were tipped with gold feathers as well.

"Yes, magnificent creature, the phoenix. She will guide you on your path, I think, and more importantly keep the Darkness that attempts to seduce all great wizards at bay. You don't think Fawkes bonded with Albus Dumbledore simply because the old man amused him, do you? The phoenix is a guardian of the Light, and on occasion they bond with a great leader of the Light so that they may shield them from the Darkness. The corruptive forces of the Dark will always try to seduce the great and powerful, Mr. Potter, and one must be doubly vigilant during times of war so that they do not come to be that which they fight."

Death had once more become serious, and Harry just nodded as the bird had apparently found him worthy and settled its self on his shoulder.

"Well now," said Death, now back to his jovial self, "what else do we need? We've got pets, a house, a time, a place, I'll take care of such mundane things as birth certificates and the like, your appearance will be changed to an older and slightly different looking one once you arrive. Hmmm, likewise, when you arrive, you'll have the knowledge in your heads that you would need to obtain some decent N.E.W.T. scores, though you'll actually have to practice for it to be of any use. No fun in just giving it to you, is there? Also, you'll have an account at Gringotts with a nice sum of gold. The key will be in your trunk."

A trunk shimmered into existence between them, Death remarked that it had everything they would need including a note telling them of their 'history'. He also implanted memories of their new selves lives in their heads and put a special block on their memories from their previous lives. While Harry and Hermione could remember everything clearly, nobody else would be able to see those memories, or even that there was a block in place.

Before they knew, Harry and Hermione were waking up in the middle of 'their' new living room. Both of them were still in a state of confusion as to what just happened, as Death moved quickly from topic to topic and usually completely ignored what little input they had.

The first thing either of them noticed was each other. Harry was now tall with slightly wavy dark brown hair, warm chocolate coloured eyes, and handsome aristocratic features. Hermione's Harry was no longer bushy but long and wavy, not to mention jet black. Her eyes had gone from a curious brown to an intelligent sapphire that Harry thought looked rather lovely.

The house it turned out was rather nice, a two storey home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms (not including the connecting bath to the master bedroom), a study with a small collection of books that had Hermione nearly drooling. There was also a den with several comfortable chairs and a fireplace that reminded Harry of the Gryffindor Common Room. This room had a large collection of books, though less specialized and a number of them were fiction novels. The living room was also quite comfortable looking, and there was a nice kitchen as well with a connecting dining room.

In the basement there was also a potions lab, with a store of many ingredients both common and rare. The other half of the basement was a combination Duelling Room/Ritual Chamber that had some very powerful wards erected to keep the magic from harming the walls of the room or escaping in general.

The most curious thing was the pictures that were spread throughout the house. They were wizarding photos and had many occupants who, after a moments thought, Harry and Hermione 'recognized'. One common person was short pixie-like witch with long and curly brown hair that somewhat reminded Harry of Hermione's before, at least in colour. He recognized several features of her appearance in his and wondered what his 'father' had looked like. The memories provided to him told him that he'd never known his father, and that his mother never spoke of him. He also found that she had died when he was only ten, a spell she was crafting had backfired rather badly and killed her.

Hermione's parents were also there represented in photos of a happy couple. The woman with black hair and heart shaped face smiled often and, Harry noticed, had similar sapphire eyes as Hermione. The man had short sandy blond hair and kind, if a little bland, features with soft blue eyes.

Hermione reminded Harry that they before they did anything else, they needed to look at the history Death had provided them. The first thing they found was their marriage certificate, which Harry read with a sort of dawning horror as he realized he did, in fact, know his father only two well. The marriage certificate was for Mr. Harold Salazar Riddle and Ms. Hermione Athena Blackraven.

Quickly looking at their birth certificates, Hermione's stated that she was the pureblood daughter of Alexander Darius Blackraven and Hesperius Lampetia Blackraven nee Bonfoy.

Harry's stated exactly what he had feared, he was the son of Tom Marvolo Riddle and Dahlia Marie Purbaton.

He really really hated Death.


	2. Riddles in the Light

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to it. Shocking, I know.

**Author's Note:** Just noticed a very minor error at the end of the chapter, Gregorovitch made Harry's wand. I originally had something else, but chose not to go with that. That's the only change. Also note, I hope this chapter helped to explain a few things, like why Voldemort would actually have sex, for instance. Also know that Death, while he may seem a bit eccentric and just out to have fun, has reason's for everything he does.

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_By LuckyFelix_

_**Chapter Two: Riddles in the Light**_

To say that Harry Potter, or Harry Riddle as he was now known, was angry would be an understatement much like saying that Hagrid was big.

Riddle, Harry bloody Riddle. Of all the people in all the world that could be Harry's 'father', it had to be Tom Riddle. He wasn't amused, not one bit.

"H.. Harry? Per.. Perhaps we should, um, read the note Death left us?" Hermione said faintly, she didn't exactly like the idea of being Voldemort's daughter-in-law. Seeing a rolled up piece of fine parchment, he grabbed it and started reading. In hindsight, he really wished he could have ignored it.

_'My Dear Mr. & Mrs. Harold Riddle,_

_First of all, allow me to congratulate you both on dear Hermione's pregnancy, I'm sure the child will be absolutely adorable. What, with such a lovely couple as you for parents, I fail to see how it could be anything but adorable.'_

Hermione actually fainted at this, Harry simply stared blankly for a moment before reading it again and promptly taking a very manly visit to the land of blissful unconsciousness. Hermione eventually came around and briefly giggled at Harry's unconscious form, which still held a look of absolute horror before she recalled the reason for his look. She quickly reennervated him, taking note that she had a different wand, and listened to Harry's string of impressive curses while adding a few of her own here and there. It was with no small amount of trepidation that they returned to the letter.

_'Now, I'm sure you have noticed I've done something very peculiar and are no doubt confused and perhaps even a mite bit annoyed. However, I decided that it would be for the best, I do hope that you are not displeased. I feel my solution comes with plenty of benefits and is, in fact, quite nice of me to have done._

Harry snorted and wondered if he strangled Death, would he die?

_If you have, by chance, not noticed what I am speaking about, then I should inform you that it is now February 20th, 1982, at least if you read this right away it should be. _

_The Dark Lord Voldemort has, thankfully, been defeated by a Mr. Neville Longbottom, whom we discussed earlier during your visit to nowhere._

_Lily and James Potter are alive and well, so far as I am aware, as is young Harry James Potter. I am doing this as a favour to you, Mr. Riddle, and as a reward for aiding in the eventual destruction of Lord Voldemort as well as an additional task that I must ask of you. In the trunk you will find a very old copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, it is written in runes and is in fact one of the earliest copies. I suggest you read the Tale of the Three Brothers, where yours truly makes a very dramatic appearance._

_I'm sure you'll be able to figure it all out in time, you're both quite clever after all. I would suggest that you try and keep an open mind, especially Mrs. Riddle, but seeing as you've already met me I doubt we would have a problem with that. The objects should not be too hard to find, once you've figured out what they are, if you think logically enough. I could of course give you the answers, but really, where is the fun in that? No fun, no fun at all._

Harry was rather conflicted by this, he was thrilled that his parents were alive, though he was more than a little sad to see Neville cursed with the fate of being the Boy-Who-Lived. Still, at least it appeared that Neville would not have to defeat Voldemort, or at least he wouldn't be alone. And what was this new task Death wanted them to do?

_'Now, as to your history. You have, I do not doubt, noticed whom your father is, yes? I can only assume that you are confused by this information, but I assure you that I have my reasons for doing as I have done. Only half of them involve my own amusement._

_Well, perhaps more than half, but there are one or two very good reasons as well. Though I shall not inform you of these, it is for you to find out for yourself, and for you to use this gift I have given you for the betterment of wizardkind._

_Now, Mr. Riddle, your dear mother Dahlia was a very talented spell crafter and a talented curse breaker. She was born in 1921, attended Durmstrang Institute and lived primarily in France, though she spent significant stretches of her childhood in Britain as well. Your grandfather Abélard Purbaton was a high ranking lieutenant of Gellert Grindlewald's Dark Army who was married to an English pureblood witch by the name of Constance Malfoy. _

_Abélard gained some renown during Lord Grindlewald's War for his various deeds, including the assassination of French Minister of Magic Jacques Leroy at the outset of the war. He also participated in the Battle of Avalon, Lord Grindlewald's attempt to invade Britain, where he is said to have killed then Chief Auror Alexander Thicknesse as well as a young up and coming Auror, Charlus Potter. He was eventually killed during the final assault upon Lord Grindlewald's stronghold in 1945 by Alastor Moody._

_Your mother and father met originally due to their connections to the Malfoy family, and then again during their travels years later. Your father, a charming fellow, seduced your lovely mother in order to acquire her help in finding the lost tomb of Herpo the Foul in Greece. Unfortunately, while they did find it in 1956, there was nothing there. Originally, Lord Voldemort left Ms. Purbaton for dead in the tomb, placing some very powerful enchantments so that she could not escape. However in this reality she was clever enough to break the enchantments and escape. Good for her._

_Roughly eight months later, Harold Salazar Riddle appeared in the world, born in Lunéville on November 9th, 1956. Voldemort did not know her pregnancy and believes, in his arrogance, that she died in Herpo's Tomb, he still does not know of your existence._

_Sadly dear Dahlia died in 1967 while working on one of her spells. You were then raised in Revanna for several years by your Great Auntie Léontine Purbaton who passed on in 1974, while you were only seventeen. Very sad. While living with Auntie Léontine you attended Durmstrang Institute, finished quite respectfully towards to top portion of your class. Very good, Harry. Very good indeed._

_Now, for the next five years you travelled about the world, eventually acquiring Persephone in Egypt. Congratulations. In late 1979 you met Ms. Hermione Blackraven, whom you fell in love with, and married in January of 1981. You moved back to Britain just a few weeks ago following the destruction of the Dark Lord, as dear Hermione had wished to return home.'_

Harry didn't really know what to say after reading about his 'ancestry', but apparently being the son of Lord Voldemort wasn't enough, so he had to have a grandfather who fought with Grindlewald and a grandmother who was a Malfoy.

_'Now, as to your current situation, Constance Malfoy died in 1951, as far as the Malfoy family are aware Dahlia died childless sometime in the mid 1950's while travelling. Your mother, it would seem, was not so fond of Riddle after he left her, or of the Malfoy family, and chose never to correct their mistaken notions. Shame, family Is such an important thing, I suggest you get to know yours._

_Now, my dear sweet Hermione, the Blackraven's were a minor pureblood family in Britain, your father was the last of the line. Your mother's family, the Bonfoy's, were likewise a minor pureblood family in Britain and she was likewise the last of her family. They were married in 1958, you were born on July 12th 1959 in Upper Flagley. The family moved to Dijon, France in 1970 where you eventually attended Beaubaton Academy, graduating with very respectable marks, congratulations._

_Your family moved back to England, specifically to Tinworth, in 1977 Your parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters in 1979, after refusing to enter into his service. At this time you started travelling about Europe, presumably to escape the troubles of home. Of course you know when you met young Mr. Riddle, got married, and so on and so forth._

_Those are the highlights, I suggest that you go through your memories to understand them better. Learning Occlumency, which you should both already know the basics of, would of course help greatly._

_As I have said before, all the documentation needed you already have, likewise all the documents the Ministries need they already have. People you would have come into contact with all have vague memories of you, as well. I did not wish for either of you to attend Hogwarts, as that would undoubtedly make things quite a bit more tricky, I'm sure you'll understand._

_I should also inform you, if for no other reason than to allay Mrs. Riddle's fears, that you've no chance of creating a Time Paradox or anything of the sort. I am sure, Mrs. Riddle, that you are aware of Paradox Theory presented by Mr. Josiah Levy. I should hope that you would read his Fifth Law on the Consequences of Time Travel, it should be enlightening._

_As for the baby, well, I love babies. It'll be fun, naturally I expect to be it's favourite Uncle Death. I shall stop by from time to time to see you. Have a lovely life, try not to visit me any time soon and if you do, make it good._

_Your friend,_

_Death'_

Harry and Hermione's brains were almost ready to go on strike, they were doing far too much work today and they just didn't like it. Not one bit. Harry's mind was still working out how one would go about killing Death until he eventually gave it up as a bad job.

"Oh Harry, what are we going to do?" asked Hermione, who for once seemed completely lost. Harry just looked at her.

"I don't know Hermione, I don't know. I'm hungry, why don't we eat?" he asked as if food would give him all the answers he sought. Or perhaps because he simply didn't want to think any more.

Hermione, to his surprise, agreed and they soon made their way to the kitchen. However, before they could begin cooking a pop signalled the arrival of a House Elf named, Harry's memory told him, Loki.

"Missy Hermie, Master Harry, is you being ready for lunch?" he asked excitedly, as if a simple yes would make his day.

"Yes Loki, Hermie and I would like lunch now, thanks." Apparently Hermione wasn't in the mood, as she glared at his cheeky grin. A distraction came in the form of Elpis the kneazle, who hopped up on Hermione's lap and demanded a scratching. Harry absently wondered where Persephone was before the answer came to him, on her perch in the study on the second floor.

"So, Hermione, what are we going to do?" he asked, hoping she'd suddenly come up with a brilliant idea.

"I don't know Harry, I mean, I wasn't looking forward to it. Are bodies may be older and we may have a lot of extra memories, but just the other day I was sixteen! I mean we'll have to keep it, of course, but it's not going to be easy. I expect he did it to make sure we stayed together, of course, bastard."

"Huh?"

"Honestly! Baby! Did you forget that already Harry!" she asked incredulously. Harry smiled sheepishly and replied with an 'Oh.' that did nothing to lessen her glare.

Harry broke the ensuing silence with a question, "So, what, uh, what do you hope it will be?"

"I don't know," she replied thoughtfully, "I hadn't really thought about it much yet. I mean, I don't know, I'd thought more about having a career and establishing that before having babies. What about you?"

He shrugged, "I don't mind either way." A frown graced his handsome murderer-like features, he really hadn't expected to be dealing with something like this so soon.

Lunch was a quiet affair as both witch and wizard seemed lost in their thoughts, and there were quite a few of them. After thanking Loki the two went to the den and sat by the fire, it was a rather chilly day out. The room had a familiarity about it that made him more comfortable despite all the madness that was going on in his life.

"So, uh, Hermione, who is that Levy bloke?" Harry asked, having unsurprisingly never heard of him.

"Oh! He created the Time-Turners, I read about him after Professor McGonagall gave me mine during third year. He also wrote the Five Laws of the Consequences of Time Travel," she said excitedly.

"Oh, right, and they are..?"

"Well, the First Law states that one must not been seen when they travel back in time, especially by themselves. The Second Law states that they must not prevent themselves from going back in time, or they may create a Paradox. The Third Law says that by the time a person goes into the past, all that will happen has happened. The Fourth Law says that a person can only go back twelve hours, maximum, without causing instability to the time-line. And the Fifth Law, which really is more of a theory, states that if one went back before they were born they could potentially create a completely alternate dimension, allowing them to effect the time-line as they wish," she finished in her lecturing tone.

Harry just stared at her for a moment, it didn't seem that complicated during third year. His only rule then was not to be seen.

"Harry, think about third year, okay? You remember we couldn't be seen, right? And we weren't, well, except for you, but that was okay because you didn't realize it was you."

Harry nodded, he understood that much.

"Well, the Second Law kind of ties into the Third Law. You see, WE didn't realize that McNair had chopped a pumpkin in half in frustration, our view of where Buckbeak should have been was blocked. And we were in the Hospital Wing while Sirius was being freed, so we didn't know. Finally, the big one, if you were not there to conjure that Patronus, then we'd all three have died. You see?"

Harry was more than a little confused though, "So I guess since Buckbeak and Sirius were freed without our knowledge, we still thought we had to go back, right? If we had known they were safe, we would have had no reason to go back in time, right?" Hermione nodded at both of these, but Harry still couldn't wrap his head around the last one.

"But Hermione, okay, how did I save myself though? I mean, the first time it all happened, there had to be a first time right? I wouldn't have been there and saved myself otherwise, right? I don't get it."

"That, Harry, is Levy's Third Law. All will happen has already happened. It's, well, I don't know how, there have been many interesting theories about the Third Law, but they're all theories." Hermione looked a bit annoyed at not being able to find a logical explanation for Levy's Third Law as she scrunched up her face in thought. A voice in the back of Harry's head thought she looked quite cute like that, but it was quickly beaten by another part of his mind that was still unwilling to accept this situation.

"Well, anyway, the Fourth Law means that if you go back too far, too many things will change leading to a Paradox. It's the Fifth Law though that concerns us. I guess, from what Death said, that the theory is correct, it's always been highly debated."

"Er, but, we're not here before we were born Hermione, we both already exist, don't we?" he asked, though he had a feeling he was missing something.

"Honestly Harry, don't you pay attention? For one, we are no longer Harry James Potter and Hermione Jean Granger, and I mean that in every way, it's not just our looks that are different Harry. I expect our magic is as well, amongst other things. But no, remember Harry that Death said Dahlia Purbaton was supposed to have died in 1956, around March I guess. That was the first change, you see, which started this alternative dimension."

Ah, that was the bit that he had been missing.

"Actually, I've been thinking about it, and I believe our parents are all real people, our whole family in fact. I mean, even back in our dimension, you know? My parents likely were two real people who got married but never had children and were killed by Death Eaters. Speaking of which, we should review our memories, like Death said."

At Hermione's command they sat back in their comfortable chairs by the fireplace and looked back on their 'lives' so far. Harry's thoughts were all over the place, he was still confused as hell about this whole thing, his memories of his old life still popped up, and he had some serious guilt issues to deal with over Neville's death.

He'd missed over a decade of his life, even if he did have vague memories of it. Even worse, the years up to his fifteen birthday were completely different. His 'mother', Dahlia, was a caring mother and showed him just how much he had missed out on by growing up with the Dursley's. Great Auntie Léontine, on the other hand, was probably more similar to Neville's Gran or perhaps a better comparison would be Professor McGonagall.

Durmstrang was an odd memory, it was in some ways similar to Hogwarts, though much more spartan. The school grounds though were a sight to behold, he suspected they were even larger than the Hogwarts grounds. Too bad it was rather cold during the winters there, as it was beautiful that time of year.

The next set of memories were his travels throughout the world. He remembered visiting Egypt, exploring some of the ancient tombs of long dead wizards, and then finding Persephone and bonding with her. The experience was something one could hardly put into words, warm caresses of fire, the feeling of something so ancient it could hardly be fathomed, and the sheer goodness of the creature.

Harry also visited Greece for awhile, as well as Russia. He spent two years in China, and rather thought that it would be nice to visit there again some day. It was in Italy, specifically Rome, that Harry 'met' Hermione while on a tour of an ancient wizarding settlement. He remembered the two visiting other sites together, their mutual happiness, he remembered the pang of guilt he felt when he heard what had happened to her parents.

He also remembered their wedding, a simple affair near Arles, France, where they lived for a time before moving here. Their little house was on the outskirts of the town, just a small but very cozy little place. He even remembered, quite vividly, their wedding night.

His musings about the past were eventually cut off by Hermione, who had apparently left the room at some point, and was just returning with Death's trunk.

"I thought we should look through the rest of the stuff in here, you know, like our N.E.W.T. scores." she added the last part sheepishly, which Harry thought was rather cute. At least she was still the same Hermione, even if she had a 'new coat of paint', so to speak.

"Alright," Harry agreed, hoping that his alternative self was smarter than the real him.

Turns out, it was. Translated into English, which his brain did for him quite well as he was apparently fluent in several languages, Harry found that he did very well indeed. He got O's in the Dark Arts, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, and Magical Creatures, EE's in Potions, Charms, and Herbology, and A's in Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Astronomy.

He recalled that the latter three he had studied for in his free time and went ahead and took the N.E.W.T.'s with his others.

Hermione on the other hand had received O's in Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Potions, EE's in Herbology and History of Magic, and an A in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, and Transfiguration. She too had studied independently, for History, Defence and Herbology in her case, and took the N.E.W.T.'s with her others.

"Well, I suppose it's not bad. I could have done better, but I guess Death didn't want us to stand out too much, and these are already okay. I guess," she seemed a little disappointed.

"Yeah Hermione, I suspect that's the reason. You know you'd have done brilliantly on the real thing," he smiled, and this did seem to brighten her up some. Harry had thought about adding that she was considered a pureblood now, so she could have failed everything and still be given a job over any muggleborns, but decided against it. Not the time for a Hermione rant.

"Thanks Harry," she beamed, "so, uh, oh my! It's nearly dinner time! Wow, I guess we spent a lot of time going over our memories, huh?" Harry didn't reply, as he was busy giving her a peculiar look.

"Er, Hermione, I know you look different and everything but, your accents all, uh, weird."

"Well of course it is Harry, I'm from Upper Flagley here, aren't I? That's in Yorkshire. I'm from Kent originally, so that's a big difference, isn't it? It's funny though, I don't think any differently, it all sounds the same in my head. Did you know that you're speaking with a French accent, Harry?"

"What?"

"Yes, it's not as bad as Fleur's, don't worry, but it is noticeable. Weird, isn't it? I expect we can both speak several languages too without too much thought. I know from my memories that I speak French and Latin fluently, and some Gobbledegook as well. What about you?" she asked, sounding far too excited about the whole thing.

"Er, well, I'm pretty sure I can speak French, Italian, Latin, and German fluently, and English, of course. I think, from my memories, that I speak decent Chinese, and I know a little bit of Egyptian and Russian, too. Oh, and I remember, uh, mum teaching me some Greek, when I was young."

Hermione looked a little put out by his linguistic skills, "I speak French because I'm, well, French, and I speak Italian because I lived in Italy with my Auntie, and I speak Latin because, well, don't all purebloods learn Latin? And I speak German because I attended Durmstrang, and that's the 'common' language there. That's what I know from my memories, anyway. Mum taught me Greek too, or was teaching me before she died, so I know a little. Chinese I learned when I lived in China."

Hermione nodded, seemingly satisfied that she was still more intelligent than Harry before she smirked, "Don't forget parseltongue, Harry."

"That too," he agreed, though he was decidedly unhappy about it, he didn't want to be reminded of that.

"So Harry, I just, well.." she said hesitantly, looking wildly around the room for something to talk about, preferably something that had nothing to do with what she originally wanted to talk about.

"We should look through the rest of the trunk, don't you think?"

With that she opened it back up and looked through, they found the book Death had mentioned, along with various official documents and such. They had not one but several vault keys, which after looking through his memory Harry realized were keys to their personal vault, the Purbaton Family Vault, the Bonfoy Family Vault and the Blackraven Family Vault. Looking further into it he realized that while they weren't anywhere near Malfoy, or even Potter rich, they could live comfortably.

After looking through the documentation Harry realized with some joy that he was a legally registered animagus, a handsome smoky coloured Egyptian Mau. He quickly transformed, happy to find that it was relatively easy for him, and found the feline form to be rather fun. He'd definitely have to do this more often.

Hermione wasted no time in snapping him up and he could tell why Crookshanks liked her, she was an expert ear scratcher.

It was this scene in which Loki the House Elf popped in on.

"Master, Mistress, youse dinner is being done." He quickly bowed and popped out of the room.

Cat Harry wasted no time in bolting towards the kitchen, finding himself not at all surprised at the fast speed he went.

The evening progressed nicely enough as both were trying to figure their new life out. They both examined their new wands in great detail, Harry's was a thirteen inch oak and unicorn hair creation of Gregorovitch's, Hermione's was a springy cherry and phoenix tail feather creation of Ollivander's.

It was not until they grew tired that their next problem came, where would they sleep? In the end, blushing furiously, they both found themselves in the master bedroom, on the extreme opposite sides of their large bed. Naturally, they were a lot closer when the woke up.


	3. Some Things Never Change

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Harry Potter, wouldn't be writing fanfiction if I did, would I?

**Author's Note: **I'll try to get Chapter Four out by Tuesday, but if I don't then it won't be out until the week after at the earliest as I'm going on a short vacation next week.

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_By LuckyFelix_

_**Chapter Three: Some Things Never Change**_

The next couple of weeks were rather uneventful, at least in comparison to their recent adventures.

Harry and Hermione spent much of their time adjusting to their new lives, new knowledge, and new memories. Hermione had been a bit saddened when she didn't seem to be quite as good at wand magic as she had been before, but she was certainly dedicated to improving. Her non-wand related skills, however, were superb.

She found herself having an instinctual grasp on potion making the likes of which she never had before. She'd always done well, but that was more due to her immense knowledge and ability to follow detailed instructions. While before she'd have never dreamed of changing anything in a potion, merely blindly following the instructions, she now would add small bits to improve it's quality or stir differently than directed. It didn't always turn out how she had expected, but more often then not it was an improvement.

Harry on the other hand found himself improved in all areas of magic. He'd never taken Ancient Runes or Arithmancy, yet now he understood them both reasonably well and found that they were enjoyable enough subjects. He rather thought that he'd have been better off taking one of them instead of Divination. Potions turned out to be another subject that he unexpectedly found himself not only good at, but enjoying. Five years with Professor Snape had ruined any potential he had in his native reality, but here he had no such problems.

What surprised him most was his abilities at both Transfiguration and the Dark Arts. He'd always been decent enough in Transfiguration, and even though he'd probably get an Exceeds Expectations on his O.W.L.'s, but now he had a true understanding of the art and found it was his favourite subject. At Hogwarts he'd never really appreciated just how powerful Transfiguration could be, after all, who cares about turning a match into a pin? But seven years of study at Durmstrang, along with his Auntie Léontine who happened to be a Transfiguration Mistress, showed him just how much could be done by somebody that really knew what they were doing.

His talent with the Dark Arts, something he'd dreaded at first, turned out to be not so bad. There were certainly some nasty curses that he knew now, but there were quite a few very useful ones. Some curses, like the Concussive Curse, were classed a Dark Art because somebody hit with it too many times could suffer brain damage. Still, the curse could be useful against Death Eaters as it travels extremely fast can can cut through a common 'protego' shield. The effects vary depending on the victim, going from disorientation and brief loss of consciousness to a very minor headache. Still, it could certainly give you enough time to get them with something better.

Not like Death Eaters could suffer much more brain damage than they already had, after all.

Both of the Riddles spent much of their days working on reviewing what they had learned in school, as Death had pointed out that they still needed to practice if they wanted to be any good at it. It was somewhat time consuming, but ultimately it all came to them rather quickly. Like riding a bike, the knowledge was there and he'd technically done it before, he just needed to shake off the rust.

The two were still somewhat awkward in their relationship with one another, after all not long ago they'd simply been best friends who hadn't had any romantic feelings for each other. Despite trying to sleep on far opposite sides of their very large bed, inevitably they would be tangled up with one another when they awoke. After the first week however they seemed to have come to the decision to not bother trying to fight it, and both of them soon found that the situation wasn't entirely unpleasant.

It was not until mid March that they had their first visitor.

Harry answered the door as Hermione had been working on a potion down in the lab, he was greeted by the sight of a vaguely familiar looking woman and a small girl.

"Hello, may I help you?" he asked while trying to decide if the face was one he recognized from this reality, or his original one.

"Hi! My names Amanda, Amanda Abbott, my husband and I had noticed a new wizarding family moved into the village and I thought I'd come introduce myself. Oh, and this is my little Hannah," she gestured needlessly down to the small blond that held her hand. Now he knew why he thought he recognized the woman, Hannah had been in Dumbledore's Army.

"Oh," was his clever reply, "well, uh, come in, come in. I'm sure my wife would, uh, love to meet you." He led the Hufflepuffs to the sitting room before calling on Loki to get Hermione.

"Would you like something to drink? Butterbeer? Pumpkin juice? Hermione's probably got some firewhiskey hidden around here," he stated with a mischievous grin just as the lady in question was walking into the room.

"Harry!" she scolded, "you know perfectly well that it's your firewhiskey." It was Harry's and he had found himself rather liking it too. It added, he thought, to his already exceptional brooding abilities.

Turning from Harry with a smile, she greeted the Abbott's who had taken the offered seat on their couch, "Hello, I'm Hermione. This one, if he forgot to mention it, is my husband Harry. Nice to meet you." Harry gave a sheepish smile at realizing he'd forgot to introduce himself.

"A pleasure, Hermione, it's always nice to see new faces in the neighbourhood, especially wizarding faces. Did you just move to Britain?" she asked, likely because of Harry's accent.

"Oh yes, I had been wanting to move back to England since Harry and I got married, but with the war and everything..." she trailed off but Mrs. Abbott seemed to understand, "well, my parents were killed by Death Eaters, so we weren't keen to come back until He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was defeated."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that dear. I completely understand, my brother and his family were killed by that monster." she said sadly before attempting to turn the discussion towards something less depressing.

"So, where are you moving in from? France?"

"Yes, Hermione and I met in Italy a few years ago and ended up doing some site seeing together. I decided to keep her around so we got married last year and lived in southern France until last month. She wanted to live in England, so here we are. Mind you, she picked a place in Wales.." Hermione, in a demonstration of who was younger in this reality, chose to stick her tongue out at Harry.

"So you're English, Hermione? Did you attend Hogwarts?" she asked, looking like she was trying to place Hermione's face. She look about Harry's age, which would put her a couple of years ahead of Hermione in school.

"Oh, no, I went to Beaubatons, my dad moved to France for a few years doing some contract work for the French Ministry. It was nice there, it's a very beautiful place, but I do wish I had attended Hogwarts. My parents had, and I had always heard stories about it, but we were living in France then and, well, Hogwarts is already expensive and if you live outside of Britain or Ireland, well, mum and dad couldn't afford it so I went to Beaubatons."

Amanda nodded in sympathy, "I can imagine. Hogwarts is great, I just can't fathom going anywhere else really. I know Beaubatons is supposed to be a very good school but, well, there's only one Hogwarts. Did you attend there too, Harry?"

"No, I attended Durmstrang, as my mother and grandparents had. Nobody in my family, despite being French, had attended Beaubatons so I had no interest in going there."

"Oh," she said, if she had noticed the lack a father reference she chose not to mention it, "was it, ah, nice there?" Apparently she knew of Durmstrang's Dark Arts classes and wasn't fond of the thought, but she wasn't a Hufflepuff for nothing. At least, he assumed she was a Hufflepuff.

"Yes, it was lovely, I do still miss the grounds around the castle, plenty of room to fly on my broom out there." That, at least, was one thing that carried over. Harry not only enjoyed flying, but he was darn good at it.

"So, Amanda, how many of, uh, our kind are there around here?" asked Hermione, she knew there was at least one other family in the area.

"Oh, there are several of us," she smiled happily, "there are the Macmillan's, they live on the other side of town, lovely people. Then there are the Brown's, they've got a little daughter Lavender who comes over to play with Hannah sometimes. There's old Mrs. Bagshot, the writer of _A History of Magic_, that's our text book for History of Magic at Hogwarts. Let's see, oh, there are the Potter's of course, they live around here somewhere," she said, looking around the room as if they'd suddenly pop up.

"They went into hiding, see, at the end of the war because You-Know-Who was after them. Hopefully they come out a bit more often soon, what with all the Death Eaters getting rounded up. They have a little son named Harry, lovely boy."

She went on to mention the rest of the wizarding families in the area, and there were several, before little Hannah decided that she wanted to go home. She soon left after inviting them to visit some time and meet Edward, her husband.

All in all, Harry and Hermione thought that their first interaction with the outside world was a success. They were both thankful that Amanda hadn't been too nosy and asked their last name as neither could be sure how many people knew Voldemort's true identity. They both knew it would come out sooner or later, but they were just hoping it'd be later. After all, they had enough going on at the moment as is and didn't need to deal with that just yet.

They were visited several times over the next couple of weeks, with Violet Brown and a miniature version of Hermione's old roommate Lavender dropping in at one point. A young Hestia Jones also made an appearance, as did a several older couples they'd never heard of before. Harry and Hermione played their parts well and deftly kept from mentioning their last name to all but Hestia and one of the older couples. Luckily neither seemed to know Voldemort's real name, or else never made the connection.

Over the course of the month of march the two also started making trips into the town, as well as to Diagon Alley. During one trip they actually came across a younger but still greasy version of Severus Snape while at an apothecary. Sirius Black, young and handsome without the ravages of Azkaban, was spotted at the Leaky Cauldron flirting with a witch while a tired looking Remus Lupin and an amused Peter Pettigrew sat watching him be rejected.

The sight shocked Harry at first, but then he realized that Peter must have never betrayed his family in this reality, seeing as they were still alive. Did that mean that he was not a Death Eater in this reality? Or did Voldemort just choose to go after the Longbottom's first? Or perhaps Sirius was their Secret Keeper, not Peter?

Questions swirled around in Harry's head, a hundred different scenarios both good and bad, but no answers came.

It wasn't until the end of March that the Potter family could be spotted in public again, Hermione having been the first of the two to see either of them, having run across Lily in the village. Harry saw James and Sirius at 'The Gilded Griffin', a small little wizarding pub in the village that was hidden from muggles. He had been there with Eddie Abbott and Jacob Brown while their wives were at Jacob's house. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for Harry's nerves, the two were just leaving as they arrived and there were no introductions.

As they moved into early April Hermione's pregnancy became more pronounced as she moved into her second trimester. They had visited St. Mungo's, where they were told that they had a healthy baby girl.

Harry had never before been more happy about the existence of the singular form in his life. He wouldn't have put it past Death to spring triplets on them.

Hermione, of course, had seemingly bought every book regarding pregnancy and child care that they had at Flourish and Blotts, and spent much of her time reading over them before bullying Harry into reading them as well. Thankfully the guys were always happy to help him escape the pregnant wife, all having had prior experience in the matter. The wives, for their part, got together often and were happy to sit around all night talking about their experiences with Hermione.

By mid April the group included Lily Potter as well, who Harry had still not yet met. Harry did meet James and Remus briefly, having been introduced by Saturnino Vaisey, to whom Harry had been introduced by Jacob Brown a couple of weeks prior. Harry found he rather liked the Slytherin, whose future son he remembered as having been a very good chaser for the Slytherin Quidditch team. Saturnino had been seeker while James was at Hogwarts, so the two were reasonably familiar with one another.

It was a few days after that that Hermione told him they'd been invited to have dinner with the Potter's. Harry didn't know what to think about that, they had visited some of the other wizarding families for dinner, and had the Abbott's and Brown's over once as well. But he didn't know how he would handle this, finally meeting his mum and having a conversation with his dad? Not to mention the fact that a smaller version of himself would be there as well.

"Harry," said Hermione, sounding rather exasperate, "you'll be fine if you just stop worrying so much! I'm sure Lily and James will love you, especially James, you can talk about Quidditch or something. Lily says he talks about Quidditch to anyone, so at least you'll have that. I'm sure he'd love to hear about Quidditch at Durmstrang."

"Yeah but, what if they don't like me Hermione? What then? Or what if, uh, what if I don't like me? I mean little Harry? Or what if.." he continued on with a long list of panicky thoughts. Hermione by this time just shook her head and rolled her eyes at the various scenarios that Harry's mind could conjure up when panicked.

"Harry, for the last time, you'll be fine! Lily will love you, I'm sure, she's very eager to meet you and we're already friends. She's a very great witch you know, brilliant at potions, Dumbledore had even thought she could be a successor to some guy named Slughorn who had been teaching it for years. But with Harry and then Voldemort hunting them, Snape ended up with the job."

As usual whenever Hermione talked about the time she spent with his mother, Harry listened closely with a smile playing on his lips. While he was glad to meet his father, and certainly worried about what James would think about him, it was Lily that concerned him the most. Perhaps it was the knowledge that her sacrifice is what had saved him, or that he had never once heard a bad word against her, but Lily was the one he was both most eager to me while also dreading the most. Despite Hermione's reassurances, he couldn't help but be pessimistic, perhaps a by product of being raised by the Dursley's.

When the big night came, Harry and Hermione found themselves walking towards a pleasant looking home about the same size as theirs. The house Harry grew up in, or at least would have if Voldemort hadn't come for him, if Peter hadn't betrayed them. A smiling Lily answered the door, warning them to watch out for little Harry who was flying on toy broomstick with James chasing him. Throughout the evening Harry had to endure many whispers of _'Aww, you were so adorable when you were little.'_ which were sometimes followed with a _'I wonder what happened?'_ and cheeky grin.

Of course, Harry knew exactly what had happened, the Dursley's had happened. He decided not to dwell on those thoughts however, he didn't want to spend his time with his parents brooding. Besides, he didn't have his new brooding partner, Mr. Ogden.

Just as Hermione had said, James began talking about Quidditch while watching little Harry play with a practice snitch that he chased gleefully around the room.

"So, Lily tells me that you played at Durmstrang? What was that like? You must have been playing around the same time as Vladimir Cristescu, yeah? I saw him a couple of months ago when Romania played England in Holyhead, brilliant player. And Kszawery Szymanowski, brilliant, he's about your age too isn't he? Did he go to Durmstrang? The Poles slaughtered Wales last month, did you see?"

Harry really should have known Hermione would be right, she usually was. Talking to James about Quidditch was like hanging out with Ron.

"Yeah, I played against both of them. Mind you, Cristescu I only played against during my first year on the team, which was my third year. Szymanowski was two years ahead of me, but yeah, played against him several times, his teams were brilliant. Petar Kiryakov played on his team too, you know the Bulgarian reserve seeker? I had a few good battles for the snitch with him, great player."

And in no time the two of them were off swapping stories of their matches. Death, it seemed, was amused enough by Harry's catching the snitch with his mouth that he included it in his new history. James and little Harry, who had stopped playing with the snitch and was giving the two his undivided attention, got a good laugh out of that story.

Lily interrupted James' story of how Sirius had once accidentally knocked himself out while playing beater for Gryffindor when dinner was ready. It turns out that Harry's mum was a brilliant cook, as the food tasted great. They were nearly halfway through when James suddenly shot out of his seat and looked around wildly as if he had heard some alarm go off.

Harry was just about to ask him what the matter was when he heard the sound of the front door being blown apart and an evil cackle that could only belong to one woman. In less than a heartbeat Harry too was out of his chair, wand in hand, and moving alongside James to the front of the house. James yelled over his shoulder that for the women to get out of there and that they'd hold them off. The message sent a chill down Harry's spine as it reminded him of the events of his former life and he resolved that Harry Potter would not grow up an orphan.

The two entered the sitting room just in time to see Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus Lestrange destroy the fireplace, blocking any help coming by Floo. With a start Harry realized that not only had the Longbottom's took the Potter's place, but it seemed the Potter's were to take theirs.

A voice in the back of his mind reminded him that Rabastan Lestrange and Barty Crouch Jr. should be here somewhere, but he didn't have time to dwell on the fact as Rodolphus sent a sent a nasty looking brown curse his way.


	4. Yet Some Things Do

**Disclaimer: **Don't own Harry Potter, honestly.

**Author's Note:** Just to let you know I've acquired a beta to help look over the story and fix anything that I miss. So I'll likely be reposting all four chapters at some point with a beta'ed copy, just a heads up. The story it's self shouldn't change at all, however. Depending on how long it takes, I may or may not post an unbeta'ed version of Chapter Five, we'll see, I haven't even written it yet.

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_By LuckyFelix_

_**Chapter Four: Yet Some Things Do**_

Harry deftly stepped to his left and avoided the unknown curse while sending a stunner back, which was promptly ignored by the brown haired man as he sent a severing curse back at Harry who ducked and sent a disorienting hex back at him.

Harry found himself rather disoriented at the outset of the duel as two sets of instincts were vying for control. On one hand the instincts of Harry Potter were trying to send stunners, disarming spells, and impediment jinxes at his enemy. On the other was Harry Riddle, he had some nice dark curses he wanted to send at the man who threatened his family. The war between the two seemed to slow down Harry's reflexes, which was certainly not a good thing when going up against one of Lord Voldemort's most talented duellers.

Shielding quickly against a bone breaking curse Harry sent a string of stunning spells out in quick succession to different areas, hoping to get the man if he tried to dodge. Unfortunately he didn't waste his energy and instead just slapped them away with his wand as if they were a minor annoyance.

Thankfully by this time the two Harry's came to an agreement, transfiguration.

A quick flick of Harry's wand conjured a thick wooden shield a couple of feet before him, that was quickly destroyed by Lestrange's oncoming blasting curse. Before the fragments could impact with Harry though they were transfigured into several sharp javelins and banished in his opponents direction. Taking advantage of Rodolphus' distraction, Harry transfigured a nearby chair into a thick metal shield which found it's way in front of his path just in time to stop a decapitation curse.

Harry vaguely heard a blasting noise in the back of the house, but his mind was focused on his current duel.

Two blasting curses from Lestrange ended Harry's shield, but he skilfully sent the remnants in the opposite direction where they impacted the wall behind where Lestrange had been. Harry tried to slip a concussive curse in on his opponent, but it was dodged and a killing curse sent in Harry's direction.

Spying little Harry's broomstick near Lestrange, Harry transfigured it into a snake which he sent at the Death Eater, who quickly banished it towards a surprised James. This however left Lestrange open long enough for Harry to try and land a piercing hex, but Rodolphus turned his body at the last possible moment while sending a nasty purple curse Harry's way.

By this time sounds of duelling were coming from the kitchen, but neither James nor Harry were in a position on help the women out.

Harry's moment of hesitation earned him a stinging cut on his left arm as he was unable to fully avoid the curse in time. His own blasting curse was redirected to the wall just behind James by Lestrange and a killing curse sent his way, which he ducked and sent a concussive curse in reply.

It was then that Harry heard the tortured scream of Hermione back in the kitchens, along with a ferocious roar of cursing from Lily accompanied by a series of explosions. It was that, along with Lestrange's amused observation of, "It sounds like somebodies mudblood whore's getting what they deserve," that caused something to snap in Harry.

"Avada Kedavra!" he roared, sending the jet of sickly green death rushing at Lestrange. It seems that Hermione being hurt ended what resistance his old self had, and the dark curses started flying between the two.

Their twin cruciatus curses met in the air and went spiralling off in different directions as Harry followed up with a decapitation curse and an organ puncturing curse. Neither hit Lestrange who replied with a killing curse that was deftly avoided by Harry. Moments later there was a strangled scream from James as Bellatrix landed a curse on him, but Harry didn't have time to check and see if his friend and father was alright, as Rodolphus was on the offensive.

Harry quickly countered a severing curse, a heart stopping curse, an explosive hex and avoided another killing curse before transfiguring a half destroyed table into a lion and sending it after the man. A quick flash of green dispatched Harry's feline ally but left Lestrange vulnerable to corrosive hex that landed on his left shoulder. The spell quickly began eating away at the man before he muttered the counter curse, avoiding a severing curse by mere inches.

Harry was about send another killing curse when a his back erupted in pain as Bellatrix redirected shrapnel from her duel with James directly into his back. He was forced to ignore the pain though as he deflected a curse that would have transfigured his blood into acid in Bellatrix's direction, only narrowly avoiding her. Moments later a pain filled yelp and a thud alerted him to James being flung into a wall, however he ignored it in favour of sending a disembowelment curse at Rodolphus.

Harry wasn't aware to the onrushing killing curse to his back compliments of Bellatrix Lestrange until he felt an explosion of warmth as Persephone appeared just in front of the killing curse, erupting into a ball of flames.

Harry didn't have much time to dwell on it though as another killing curse came flying his way from Bellatrix's husband and he dived behind the nearby sofa. Quickly conjuring a flock of birds before banishing the sofa in Bellatrix's direction and sending a blinding curse at Rodolphus. Rodolphus shielded against the curse before sending a killing curse at Harry, which one of his birds happily dived before, dying in an explosion of feathers.

Quickly transfiguring the bannister behind Bellatrix into a large python, which he ordered to take her out, he swept his wand in a large arc and gave it a jab at the momentarily surprised Rodolphus Lestrange, sending a terror curse that hit him full in the face. The elder Lestrange brother fell to floor with arms flailing as he screamed in terror and Harry turned back to Bellatrix just in time to see another bird bite the dust in a flash of green light.

He didn't however have much time to savour that victory as Rabastan Lestrange had come up behind him and landed a cruciatus. Bellatrix moved quickly to reverse the spell on her husband as Rabastan lifted the torture curse in order to preform a killing curse on the unknown wizard. Harry took his chance and transfigured a piece of the former fireplace into an alligator that wasted no time in latching its self painfully onto the leg of the younger Lestrange.

Sitting up with a swirl he transfigured the ground near the husband and wife into a pool of water and immediately hit it with an electrifying curse. Conjuring a bowling ball that exploded upon being impacted by the killing curse Bellatrix had been able to get off before being electrocuted, he banished the fragments towards her and her husband even as they were transfiguring themselves into daggers.

He did not however have time to enjoy Bellatrix's shriek of anger as a killing curse from Rabastan exploded the floor right where he had been just a heartbeat ago. Rolling towards the middle of the destroyed room he sent piercing hex towards the youngest Lestrange which caught him in the right arm, causing him to drop his wand.

He couldn't savour that victor however as the agonized scream of his younger self distracted him just long enough to be hit with Bellatrix's cruciatus. She stood victoriously over him with a look of insane joy, appearing quite demented with her hair standing on end.

The three Lestrange's were so focused on him that the arrival of several newcomers didn't even register until they all fell with three flashes of scarlet. Harry, sore all over, looked up to see the cold demeanour of one Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, flanked by Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.

Sirius immediately went off in the direct that Harry knew James to be lying crumpled and unconscious.

Dumbledore, who was just about the last person Harry wanted to see, looked down on him but before he could speak, Harry motioned towards the kitchen.

"L..Lily, Herm, Hermione, there's another one in the, in the kitchen.." he got out through the pain, Dumbledore and Lupin quickly rushed off with Snape right behind them while Minerva McGonagall bent down to check his wounds.

"'M fine, madame, fine." he assured quite unsuccessfully, ignoring protests from his various wounds that he was most certainly not fine. McGonagall gave him a stern look before she helped him up. He looked around briefly, noticing Peter and Sirius reviving James and the small pile of ash that was Persephone. He absently noted that his other two avian protectors had died at some point, but didn't give it much thought as he was far too worried about his wife.

After nearly falling when he tried to walk to the kitchen, McGonagall grabbed him and allowed him to use her for support, still with a look of stern disapproval but he thought he saw a spark of understanding in her eyes.

Entering the kitchen was like a scene from a nightmare.

In the far corner lay Lily, looking bloody and lifeless as Snape ran his wand over her assessing the damage. Toward the door was Barty Crouch Jr., lying face first on the ground and bleeding profusely from his back where it appeared he'd had some sort of blasting curse hit. Nobody bothered to help him, though. Little Harry was curled up in a ball on Remus Lupin's lap crying as his Uncle Moony tried to comfort him.

Harry barely noticed any of this however, as his undivided attention was on Hermione who lay just in front of him. Dumbledore was bent over her looking pale and worried as she twitched every so often in the after effects of prolonged exposure to the cruciatus curse.

Dumbledore backed out of the way as Harry dropped to his knees beside Hermione, a thousand thoughts running through his mind as he looked down on her broken form. He wasn't even conscious of his begging her to be alright, or of the tears that flowed freely down his cheeks. All he knew was that the most important person in the world to him was hurt and he didn't know how he'd survive without her.

He knew now that he'd never have a problem loving Hermione, not any more, as everything the two ever went through together flashed quickly through his mind. She was the one person who stood by him every step of the way, no matter what. Even when Harry himself didn't realize it, she stood by him, he suddenly felt horrible for thinking ill of her during the Firebolt incident in third year. Then, like always, she had been looking out for him, even if he couldn't see it at the time.

While Ron may have been his 'best mate', Hermione was the one who always helped him, the one who pushed him to be better than he was, the one who helped him most through the tribulations of his fame. Now, here in this foreign reality, she was the only one that truly knew him, the only person who could possibly understand him. Harry had taken her for granted, he realized, but now she looked so vulnerable, so broken, he wished for nothing more than to take her away where nobody could ever hurt her again.

Of it's own accord his mind brought up images of Hermione, a bushy haired know-it-all, of her beauty at the Yule Ball, the way she looked when thinking, the glow she had when learning something new, the simple smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth as she read a new book. It switched then to the wavy black hair, long and silky, her soft heart shaped face and brilliant sapphire eyes. He remembered the feeling of waking up with her in his arms each morning, her softness, her smile as she slept.

So many feelings he never knew he had, so many that he didn't understand, ran through him in that moment as he held Hermione, begging any beings that would listen that she would be alright.

He was shaken out of his stupor by a gentle hand of Albus Dumbledore.

"Please, Mr. ..." he looked down at Harry questioningly, obviously not recognizing him from Hogwarts as he did most people. Harry however just stared numbly back at him, all thought lost in a whirlwind of emotions. He dimly heard Remus come up and introduce him, being the only other one there besides the Potter's to have met Harry.

"Riddle, sir, Harry Riddle, and his wife Hermione," he said softly, holding young Harry in his hands who looked to have fallen into a restless sleep.

Dumbledore, upon hearing this, looked back sharply at Harry, the twinkle gone from his eyes and replaced by a thousand questions. Something in Harry desperate look however must kept him from inquiring, or perhaps it was just his natural tendencies to help people and to believe the best in people.

"Mr. Riddle, we must take your wife and the Potters to St. Mungo's. If you could follow Remus, I shall deal with the Lestrange family and see that they find suitable accommodations." said Dumbledore, sounding for all the world as if he were going to hook them up with a nice hotel room somewhere.

Harry just nodded vaguely as Remus levitated James' body into a kitchen on a conjured stretcher with Poppy Pomfrey bustling in right behind him and heading for Hermione. Lily, also on a stretcher, was placed next to James and soon Hermione joined them and Remus set up a portkey to take them to the wizarding hospital.

At some point that night Harry must have fallen asleep next to Hermione's bed in St. Mungo's, as he awoke with the sun's rays shining into the room and the low voices of the Marauder's talking around James' bed. Glancing over in their direction told him that James was once again awake, having only suffered several broken bones and a nasty concussion. Harry guessed that Bellatrix hadn't been trying to kill James as she wanted to torture him for information, as they had the Longbottom's in Harry's native reality.

Obviously they had no such qualms when it came to Harry.

"Riddle?" asked a quiet voice, and with a start he saw that Remus Lupin had walked over to where he was upon realizing he was awake.

"Oh, hello Remus, it is Remus right?" asked Harry, remembering that he had only met the man once.

"Yes. Are you okay there, Harry?"

"Fine, fine, er, you didn't happen to catch any news about Hermione's condition, did you?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah, the healer said she and the baby would be fine," he smiled at the look of relieved joy on Harry's face. "She should wake up in the next couple of days, I think. The prolonged use of the cruciatus and the potions the healers used will keep her unconscious as her nerves and mind heal"

Harry nodded and looked over at Lily, who was lying still on her bed.

"She'll be fine too, she woke up briefly earlier. She'll be taking a number of potions for the next several months, but she'll be as good as new soon enough. Apparently she blocked some of the curse, wasn't able to get it all though, but she deflected enough so that it didn't kill her."

Harry nodded solemnly once again and thanked Remus before turning back to his wife.

"Oh, Dumbledore wanted to speak with you at your convenience. He told me to tell you when you woke up, he'll be in the Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts." Harry grimaced, of course Dumbledore wanted to speak with him, but he really didn't want to speak with Dumbledore. He had hoped to avoid his old Headmaster as long as he could, but now that Dumbledore knew of his existence he knew he couldn't put it off.

He would have preferred if Hermione could be there with him, and he'd have liked to have strengthened his Occlumency shields before meeting the Master Legilimens as well. Still it was apparently not to be, at least Death had shielded anything that would give away their true nature.

Although, perhaps that would have made things easier?

His thoughts about the matter were broken however when his father spoke up, having hobbled over and conjured a seat next to him. "Harry?"

"What? Oh, James, good to see that you're okay, I'm glad to hear that Lily will be fine." he smiled, truly happy that both would be fine. "How is the little seeker doing?"

James smiled hugely at the reference to their debate about what position little Harry would play, with Harry stating rather matter of factly that he would be a seeker while James protested he was born to be a chaser.

"My little chaser is fine, thanks. Lils was awake for a bit when he was here earlier, and that made him feel much better. He spent the night with some friends, hopefully they'll let me out of here soon so I can go pick him up. Bloody healers." Harry only nodded in agreement with his father, he too had had plenty of experience with healers not wanting to let him out of their sight.

"Anyway, Harry, I wanted to thank you for what you did. If you hadn't been there... well, I don't really want to think about it. I owe you a debt I can never fully repay, but, no no, but if ever there is anything you need, anything at all, just ask. I owe you, yes I do, Lily and Harry are my entire world and I don't know what I'd do without them. So thank you for helping to protect them, no, thank you. Many people would have just run and saved themselves, you didn't even hesitate."

James had refused or even outright ignored all of Harry's protestations that he didn't owe him anything, or that anybody would have done it. Behind him Sirius and Remus both beamed, obviously in complete agreement with James on all accounts.

After that Harry eagerly accepted Remus and Sirius' offer to go find some breakfast as he still needed to delay visiting Dumbledore in order to think about what he wanted to say. They left with the other two promising to bring something back for a pouting James who was not allowed to leave the ward.

Unfortunately breakfast didn't seem to last very long at all, and Harry tumbling through the fireplace at the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts.

"Ah, good morning Mr. Riddle," said a grandfatherly voice as Harry cursed his inability to floo, "I believe we have much to discuss. Would you like a lemon drop?"

To the ancient wizard's surprise, Harry took one.

It tasted horrible.


	5. The Mysterious Riddle

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter. The Harry Potter universe is the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Warner Brothers, and any other lucky folks I missed. I'm not associated with them in any way, I don't make money from this, I'm just dabbling about in their sandbox.

**Author's Note: **Okay, just a quick note here. I'm going to go ahead and continue posting the non-beta'd version of each chapter here on FFN. The final versions will be posted first at PatronusCharm and then Mugglenet and HarryPotterFanFiction as they are validated. Eventually I'll replace the chapters here with the final version. They're all the same though, save for spelling and grammar corrections for the most part.

This way you guys won't be waiting for chapters so long. I figure, even my first draft is likely better than a lot of the incomprehensible rubbish that is posted on this site, let alone my second or third draft (or seventh, in the case of this chapter).

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_**Chapter Five: The Mysterious Riddle**_

Harry was just about to take a seat when weak trill caught his attention. Looking back to where he knew Fawkes would be he saw that the Headmaster's phoenix was not alone, a tiny and somewhat perturbed looking companion was giving him a reprimanding glare.

"Oh! Sorry Persephone!" Harry apologized as he made his way over to the newly reborn phoenix, "I forgot, sorry, Hermione was hurt." He looked down at his shoes ashamedly as his little avian saviour did a rather uncanny impersonation of Professor McGonagall. Finally, after a long minute she gave a satisfied chirp and hopped towards the edge of the tray that usually collected Fawkes' ashes after a burning.

Taking this as a sign that he'd been forgiven, this time, Harry picked her up and carried her gently back over to his seat in front of Dumbledore's desk.

"Magnificent creatures, are they not? I take it that she is your companion, yes?" asked Dumbledore, a mixture of curiosity and amusement dancing about in his twinkling eyes.

"Yes sir, we met in Egypt and she adopted me as her pet human ever since," Harry said with a grin, causing the ancient Headmaster to chuckle. Sometimes if felt rather like Phoenixes kept humans as pets and not vice versa.

"Sir, what was it you wished to speak with me about?" asked Harry, deciding it would be best to get this out of the way sooner, rather than later.

"Ah, to the point then, very well. You were the only person to remain conscious throughout the entire event Mr. Riddle; I would very much like to hear what happened from your point of view."

The twinkle had faded somewhat and he looked at Harry as if he were a particularly difficult arithmancy equation that needed to be solved.

"Er, well sir, Hermione and I were having dinner with the Potters when James jumped up, I guess he felt the wards fall or something. Anyway, James started running to the front of the house and I followed him. I knew that the Potters had been in hiding and that there were still some dangerous Death Eaters out there.

"Well, when James and I got to the sitting room, we saw the, uh, Death Eaters. They destroyed the fireplace so that nobody could floo in and then we started duelling them. I was duelling the man, James had the crazy chick. While we were duelling them, I heard an explosion towards the back of the house, near the kitchen, but both James and I were too busy to go help the girls."

Harry paused here for a moment, pondering what all to tell the overly suspicious Headmaster.

"Er, well, I wasn't able to pay too much attention to James' duel, because I had my own hands quite full. But eventually the woman must have gotten the better of him, I didn't see what happened, but the next thing I know Persephone appeared right behind me and I turned around just in time to see her erupt in a ball of flames. The Killing Curse, I would assume."

He gave a nod down to the miniature phoenix in his hands, who gave and affirmative trill.

"Well, after that I was trying to keep both of them at bay, and then a third bloke came in and got me from behind. I managed to, er, electrocute the first two and tried to take out the other bloke, but the woman recovered quicker than I expected and got me with the Cruciatus. Then, uh, well then you showed up."

Harry finished up the story more than a little angry and ashamed in himself for failing, despite the odds. It didn't matter that he had been outnumbered, nor did it matter that these were two of Voldemort's Inner Circle. He felt that if he couldn't even handle Voldemort's minions, he'd never in a million years be able to destroy Voldemort himself.

"Thank you, Mr. Riddle. You did very well, Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange were two of Lord Voldemort's more formidable and vicious followers, I believe you acquitted yourself quite well young man."

Harry just nodded vaguely to Dumbledore who was giving him a searching look.

"There is, however, the question of your spell selection. Your wand was tested while you were with the Healers," Dumbledore stated, looking at Harry as if he were waiting for the young man to deny it or come up with an excuse. "I must admit Mr. Riddle that I was more than a little concerned when I learned of your choice of spells, specifically the use of the Unforgivables. Would you like to explain why you believed these to be necessary?"

Harry gave his old Headmaster an incredulous look, did he honestly think that people like the Lestranges could be dealt with by stunners and disarming spells? When he replied it was with a cold tone that he was not used to hearing come from his own mouth.

"I hardly think a stunner was going to do the trick, Headmaster. My family was being threatened, sir, and I do not respond well to such threats. Had I not, ah, fought fire with fire, then my family and the Potters would have been dead or insane by the time you or the Ministry arrived."

Harry wasn't entirely sure what made him take that tone with the ancient wizard, partly he assumed that it was his new personality. On the other hand, he felt that part of it was simply Harry James Potter. He didn't doubt that if he'd known the Unforgivables in his previous life, and had thought they would help him save the ones he loved then he'd have used them.

After a moment in which Dumbledore seemed to contemplate Harry's words, the old man spoke in his best grandfatherly voice.

"Understandable, Mr. Riddle, understandable. However I beg you consider the type of magic you use more carefully in the future. Dark Magic has twisted the minds of many great wizards, Mr. Riddle; many of whom used it in the beginning for only the purest of reasons. One must always guard against becoming that which they fight against. Wizards far older and cleverer than you have succumbed to the Darkness and destroyed all for which they fought. Just a word of caution, Mr. Riddle."

Harry thought that Dumbledore was likely fearful that he would turn out like his 'father', but was reserving judgement for the time being. Despite his use of Dark Magic, he hadn't used any truly 'evil' spells, aside from the Unforgivables. That was likely the only reason he wasn't being interrogated more harshly, that and he has shown a capacity for something that his 'father' had never had or understood.

Love.

And if there is one thing Dumbledore likes to go on about, it's the power of Love.

Dumbledore once more drew Harry's attention, "I took the liberty of reviewing your history before our meeting, I was most interested to learn more about the young man who saved the lives of two of my favourite pupils. I see that you lived for a time with Léontine Purbaton, yes? A brilliant Transfiguration Mistress, I had the privilege of working with her on several occasions before becoming Transfiguration Professor at this very school.

"I find her theories on the use of conjuration and animation during duels to be most interesting and have endeavoured to apply them to my own duelling form with some amount of success. I noticed that you, likewise, seemed to have used her methods in a limited form."

Harry nodded, he had indeed. Conjuring a flock of birds was not overly hard, charming them to follow very simple orders was not much harder. Conjuring a flock of birds to fly around you, without getting in your way and having them dive down and intercept curses is rather tricky. Adding to that to only have them dive in the way of curses that you are unaware of makes it even more difficult.

Yet, for one who is able to do so, it is very rewarding.

"Mr. Dumbledore," Harry addressed, not totally sure what he ought to call the old man who hadn't been his professor during this lifetime, "I was curious, sir, how was it that you and the others knew to come in the first place? Even before the Aurors from the Ministry showed up?"

He really was rather curious as to how the old man knew; it was understandable that he knew everything that happened in Hogwarts, but even outside of the school?

"Ah, yes, dear Lily sent me a message via Patronus after you and James had gone to face the Lestranges. I firecalled some friends of James and Lily, as well as brought several members of my staff here at Hogwarts. Thankfully it seems that we arrived just in time to prevent anything permanent."

"Thank you, sir. And who, might I ask, were those Death Eaters? You got all of them, I assume?"

Of course, Harry already knew exactly who they were, but didn't know if Dumbledore might find that odd or not so decided to feign ignorance.

"They were Rodolphus Lestrange, the man whom you were duelling, his wife Bellatrix whom was duelling James, and his younger brother Rabastan whom entered your duel later. In the kitchen we found Bartemius Crouch Junior. Unfortunately Mr. Crouch was hit with a blasting curse as he tried to flee, the Healers do not believe it possible to repair the damage. He'll likely remain paralysed for life."

Harry nodded, yep, the same dubious cast of characters. "Sir, Bartemius Crouch, is that not the name of the Director of Magical Law Enforcement?" asked Harry, feigning confusion this time.

Dumbledore sighed heavily, "Indeed, Barty Junior is Director Crouch's son. Bartemius had been a favourite to become the next Minister of Magic, however I doubt that shall happen after this little scandal."

Harry was surprised that Dumbledore not only mentioned that, but didn't seem the least bit upset about that fact. However, remembering the kind of man Crouch was and the fact that it was he who gave Auror's the rights to use Unforgivables, it wasn't too terribly surprising that Dumbledore should not like him.

"Shame." Harry commented with no small amount of sarcasm. "I take it they are all headed to Azkaban, sir? Even Junior?"

On the inside Harry was ecstatic about Barty's condition, that made if far less likely that he'd be able to help Voldemort return this time around.

"Yes," Dumbledore nodded, "they will all have a trial first, but I find it doubtful that they will receive anything less than Azkaban. Not after the testimony given by James and Lily, and after their own confessions under Veritaserum." Harry raised an eyebrow at that, he didn't think they had been questioned under the truth serum during his original time-line. Seeing his questioning look Dumbledore went on, "James insisted, as did Sirius, so as Chief Warlock I gave the Auror's authorization to use the truth serum, which yielded many intriguing questions."

For some reason, Harry really did not like the way that Dumbledore was looking at him at that moment. He wasn't sure what they could have said against him, aside from the dark arts use earlier.

"Indeed, many interesting questions. Mr. Lestrange was quite surprised when you spoke Parseltongue to command a transfigured serpent to attack him. The Aurors had wanted to question you about this, and our earlier discussed spell use, however I convinced them to allow me to interview you instead."

Dumbledore spoke as if he was doing Harry and immense favour, which, Harry decided, he likely was.

"Er, uh, yes sir. I'm, uh," thinking quickly, Harry decided to downplay his knowledge of his father, "I'm not sure where I get it from though. Auntie said it didn't run in their family."

Dumbledore nodded, already knowing exactly where Harry got it from.

"Tell me, Mr. Riddle, what do you know of your father's side of the family? Your father was a Mr. Tom Marvolo Riddle, yes?" Dumbledore looked as if he'd just asked something as simple as 'Your robes are black, yes?' instead of 'Your father is the Darkest wizard in centuries, yeah?'.

"Uh, yes sir, Tom was my dad's name, that's what mum said. But I don't know anything about him, mum never spoke of him." Harry thought for a moment, before an idea hit him and he had to fight to keep the smirk off his face. "I think, sir, that he might have been a muggle."

Dumbledore's eyes went comically wide and his mouth hung open for a few seconds as he processed Harry Riddle's stunning assumption.

"Oh? What, may I ask, makes you think that Mr. Riddle? I was not aware that they allowed those of muggle heritage to attend Durmstrang." Damn, there is that.

"Well sir, like I said, mum never spoke of him and seemed rather upset whenever I asked about him. And Auntie Léontine seemed to disapprove of him greatly, so I just assumed that he must have been a muggle or something. He surely wasn't a pureblood, as I've never heard of a Riddle family. As for Durmstrang, they don't allow muggleborns and usually don't allow half-bloods, but they will make certain exceptions. Headmaster Knezović was a friend of the family, and Auntie used to teach there. I assume that is why I was allowed to attend."

Dumbledore nodded as if this made sense to him, though Harry was fairly certain that his eyes were twinkling in mirth.

"If you do not mind my asking, Mr. Riddle, would you think less of your father if he were a muggle instead of a wizard?"

"No sir, I don't really care either way. Like I said, I never knew him, and you can't really miss what you never had. As for being a muggle, doesn't really matter. If he was, well, it certainly didn't effect me very much, as I like to consider myself a fairly powerful wizard. Most muggles I've met haven't seemed to bad, though admittedly none of them knew about magic either."

The ancient wizard nodded and smiled, apparently that had been the correct answer.

"If you will permit me one last question, Mr. Riddle?" Harry nodded that he would, "I was curious as to what sort of career you are intending to follow? As I said, I have read the Ministry files and it seems you would be more than capable of getting most any job you should wish for. I also read that you are certified by the French Ministry for teaching?"

Harry nodded, he was indeed. He wasn't sure why, other than perhaps Death approved of his leading Dumbledore's Army. He also wasn't sure where Dumbledore was going with this.

"Er, yes, I am. My Aunt, as you know, was a teacher for years at Durmstrang before retiring, and she also taught at Beaubatons for a short time as a favour to their Headmaster. When I lived with her she was a private tutor, and when I was older I sometimes helped her with the younger children. I was also a tutor during my final two years at Durmstrang, for the younger kids at the school. I was head of the Transfiguration group in my final year, and assistant in the Offensive and Defensive Magics group."

Dumbledore nodded and commented, "I have heard of this before and have thought of adding something like that to Hogwarts."

"Yes, it is very helpful, I'd say it would be even more helpful to the muggleborns and muggle raised students here at Hogwarts." Dumbledore nodded in agreement and Harry carried on, "As for what sort of career I intend to follow, I'm not yet sure. Hermione had been working towards becoming a Potions Mistress and planned a career in that field, but with our baby on the way that will likely have to be put on hold. For myself however, I don't know. I have considered a career at the Ministry, perhaps in International Magical Cooperation or something."

Harry really hadn't given it a whole lot of thought, after all it wasn't that long ago that he'd been a fifteen year old. Then he had wanted to be an Auror, but looking back on it he wasn't even sure that was what he wanted to do with his life. He'd spent most of his time in the magical world fighting Voldemort, would he still want to fight Dark Wizards after he had defeated the Dark Lord? He really wasn't sure, but perhaps something would come up.

"Well Mr. Riddle, I wish you the best of luck in whatever it is you decide to do. I am sure you'll excel in any field. Now however, I believe I have kept you from your lovely wife as long as I dare, and I must get back to dealing with mischievous students, I dare say."

With that Dumbledore led Harry to the Entrance Hall, pointing out things of interest and giving historical facts about the school along the way.

Harry spent the next two days with Hermione before she was finally cleared to leave; though she would have a check up two weeks later just to make sure that everything was fine.

When they returned home Harry wasted no time in telling Hermione about his visit to Dumbledore's office.

"So you acted like you didn't know who your father was? Well, I suppose that is best, for now. But if he finds out that you lied Harry, or if he knows already, that will only make him trust you less. You know that, right?"

Harry was a bit annoyed with her bossy tone, something that he had hoped would be less prevalent after their recent changes. "Yes Hermione, I know, but I really didn't want to deal with that whole mess right now."

"Well," Hermione said huffily, "you're going to have to deal with it sooner or later. Who do you think Dumbledore is going to suspect of opening the Chamber of Secrets? Who do you think he's going to suspect of helping Voldemort?"

"Yes Hermione," stated an exacerbated Harry, "I know, we'll deal with that when the time comes. Somehow. I don't know, but we've got years to think about it."

His wife eyed him for a moment before huffing again, and pointing to the copy of the Daily Prophet that was sitting innocently on the table. "What about that, Harry? You know that Dumbledore wasn't the only person who knew Voldemort's real name, right? And what about the Malfoy's? Whoever wrote that piece included who you mother was, even if they didn't know who Tom Riddle was. What are you going to do when they come wanting to get to know you? Especially since you used parseltongue in your duel. How could you let something like that slip Harry?"

While Hermione Blackraven's personality helped make Hermione Granger a lot easier to live with, during times like these the old Hermione could still surface. Harry absently wondered how much trouble he'd get in with her if he hit her with a stunner, but decided it wouldn't be worth it.

"I'm sorry Hermione, I had more important things on my mind at the time, you know, like you being tortured!" Harry replied hotly. He regretted losing his temper with her, but he was just as frustrated with everything that was going on as she was.

Things didn't get much better when they got an owl the next day. The letter came from a rather haughty looking horned owl and was written on the finest parchment. He was already dreading what it could be, but opened it anyway.

It appeared that the Malfoys did read the Prophet, and apparently they wanted to get to know their long lost relative and had been invited to Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire on June 5th for a celebration of young Draco's birthday.

Harry thought long and hard, and in the end he decided that a romantic date with Dolores Umbridge is just about the only thing worse that he could come up with. The invitation had been signed by Abraxas Malfoy, whom Harry assumed was likely Lucius' father, most likely making him his Great Uncle.

What was worse, the fifth was only two days away.

He wanted to ignore it, but Hermione reminded him that Harry S. Riddle didn't know any of his family and would likely be thrilled at the chance. A small part in the back of his mind, the Slytherin part, stated that the Malfoy family could prove useful. Besides, there really wasn't much he could do now, seeing as they knew who he was and would likely try to meet him another way.

When Harry had decided that he needed a stiff drink after writing his acceptance letter, he went to the local pub to find the Marauder's there celebrating Peter's birthday. They waved him over and when he told them that he'd been invited to a party by some long lost family, they wasted no time in telling him just what kind of people the Malfoys were.


	6. Who Would Have Thunked It

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter. The Harry Potter universe is the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Warner Brothers, and any other lucky folks I missed. I'm not associated with them in any way, I don't make money from this, I'm just dabbling about in their sandbox.

**Author's Note: **Just a quick note, after this chapter things will speed up a bit as we progress further along towards Harry Potter years. Once we get there things will slow down a bit as we get into the story of Voldemort returning and all that fun stuff.

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_**Chapter Six: Who Would Have Thunked It**_

The fifth of June 1982 found Harry and Hermione Riddle in one of the places they least expected to ever visit, not to mention actually be invited to visit.

Yet here they were at Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire.

The house was not fancy so much as overly opulent, not that either of them expected differently from the Malfoy's. Harry did find the albino peacocks rather funny, muttering to Hermione that he'd not be the least bit surprised if that was either Malfoy's animagus form.

Harry's old friend Dobby ended up answering the door when they arrived, and Harry wished that there was something he could do for the elf but knew that for now, at least, there was nothing. The usually excitable little elf led them to the second floor where a number of guests and several white-blond Malfoy's were already socializing. The birthday boy, Draco, was sitting in Narcissa's lap wearing a surprisingly adorable smile. Harry realized of course that even Malfoy, as a little child, must have been decent enough.

Too bad he grows up.

Immediately after Dobby announced their arrival, and left with a pop, an old man whose hair had lost the little blond it had came up to them and introduced himself.

"Harry! And the lovely Hermione, yes? Excellent, I am Abraxas Malfoy, your Great Uncle if I am not mistaken." Harry nodded and the mans smile widened, "Of course. Imagine my surprise when I found out that little Connie's Lia had lived and had child! Connie was ever so sad that she never heard from Lia after she went off adventuring, the poor dear. Come come, take a seat, how about I introduce you to everybody?"

Harry and Hermione took the offered seats, a little bewildered by the events so far. Harry wasn't sure what he expected upon meeting the Malfoy's, but he seemed to somehow think even a child's birthday would involve some dark rituals, perhaps a few muggle sacrifices, things of that nature. However, so far, they all seemed quite decent bordering on normal.

"Some wine Harry? Hermione? Noddy! Bring some of the wine for Mr. and Mrs. Riddle."

The wine was excellent, not that Harry expected anything less of his wealthy relatives.

"Well Harry, Hermione, first allow me to introduce my son Lucius and his wife Narcissa, and their little one Draco, the birthday boy!" He gestured to each in turn, Lucius it turned out could in fact smile in a non malicious manner, much to Harry's surprise. Narcissa smiled radiantly, no longer looking as if she had something unpleasant under her nose. She really was a rather beautiful woman, even when Harry saw here at the Quidditch World Cup he couldn't doubt that, she looked amazing tonight and he idly wondered how she ended up with a ponce like Malfoy.

Little Draco however clapped for himself when he heard his name. Apparently even as a child he thought himself something particularly special. Still, he was a cute little kid.

"Over here," said Abraxas, gesturing to the left of Draco's family, "we have my other sister, Arabella and her husband Percival Brislen. The lovely couple beside them are their son Augustus and his wife Ériu."

The Brislens all greeted Harry and Hermione happily before Abraxas moved on to another group of platinum blondes, "and the other side of the Malfoy family, Darius and his wife Alease. Darius is my second cousin," he added as an aside. "This here is their oldest son Damien and his wife Patiences," he then smirked leaned in and said in stage whisper, "don't let the name fool you, she's anything but."

The Malfoy patriarch received a playful scowl for his efforts as he carried on, "Then there is their daughter," he said referring to Damien and Patiences, "Phoebe and her fiancé Erasmus Locksley, they're getting married this fall. Their son Patricius is at Hogwarts, he's a sixth year at the moment."

They all greeted each other as well before Abraxas gestured towards a man with long jet black hair and his family, "This would be Diomedes, Darius and Alease's other son, and his wife Urania. I know, he's sort of the black sheep of the family, don't ask me how a couple of blondes made such a dark haired boy, it's beyond me. Then finally is their daughter, Selena, she'll be starting Hogwarts this September."

The cute little black haired and grey eyed girl smiled happily at that, exclaiming "I can't wait!" with youthful enthusiasm.

Abraxas then looked around and Harry was surprised to see that a few more people had showed up during the introductions. These seemed to be friends of Lucius and Narcissa, as none of them looked like Malfoy's.

"Right, everybody is here then. Well, I think you all know everybody, yes? Then I'll introduce Harry and Hermione Riddle. Harry is my sister Connie's grandson, just recently moved to Britain from France. I dare say you've all read about him in the papers, yes?" There were nods of confirmation from all the guests as they studied Harry.

"Well Harry, the rest are friends of Lucius and Narcissa, lets see, ah, there is Edward Nott and his wife Elaine, and their little son Teddy, he's Draco's age. Silvanus Parkinson and his wife Mairwen and their daughter Pansy and son Patrick. Hmmm, ah, Oliver Greengrass and his wife Richelle and their daughter Daphne. Over there in the corner trying to hide is Severus Snape, he's the Potion's Master over at Hogwarts."

Harry looked over and saw that yes, the greasy man was hiding in a corner of the room looking about as comfortable as a mouse in a room fool of cats.

"Over here," continued Malfoy, "we have Alan Crabbe and his wife Isabella, and their son Vincent. Next to them is Daniel Goyle and his wife Alexandra and their son Gregory. Lets see, oh, of course, the man with the green hat is Cornelius Fudge and his wife Hayleigh. Cornelius is preparing to run for Minister of Magic during the next election, he's a good man."

Harry may have imagined it, but he could have sworn that nearly every single Malfoy in the room smirked a little at the last bit of information. He was then quite appalled when he realized a smirk of sorts graced his face. Obviously he'd already been in their company far too long.

Before long the whole group was in a dining room and eating a very delicious dinner that could rival a Hogwarts feast. Hermione was sat across from Severus Snape, whom she wasted little time in starting up a discussion on potions with. Snape, for his part, seemed to warm up to Hermione once he realized that she actually knew what she was talking about. Harry, despite being quite competent at potions, was soon lost.

He instead spoke with Abraxas.

"So, Harry, you recently moved back to England? What are you planning to do career wise, have any ideas? I'd be happy to put in a good word for you of course, I have many contacts at the Ministry after all."

"I'm honestly not sure. Hermione was planning on getting her Mastery in potions and working in that, but now with the baby and all, that is likely pushed back a few years. I myself, I've considered following in my Great Aunt Léontine's footsteps and teaching. However I don't want to be away from my family for most of the year, especially with a daughter on the way. I've considered a career as a Curse-Breaker or Warder, freelance stuff most likely. That's what mum did. Or a job in the Ministry, but I'm really not sure what would be best there."

"Hmmm, well, a young man of your talents will certainly have plenty of options." He looked pensive before turning back to Harry, "Well, if you want a job at the Ministry, I'm sure I could help you there. Certainly. If you want to do Curse-Breaking and Warding on the side, I think that would be wise, you could certainly bring in some galleon's depending on how good you are. Teaching, what would you teach?"

"Well, I'm qualified to teach Transfiguration, Dark Arts or Defence."

The eldest Malfoy nodded, "Yes, I saw you were certified for teaching in France? Well, Britain doesn't actually require certification for teaching. A bit unwise, perhaps, but there you go." Harry wasn't really surprised by that, it certainly explained why he had so many bad teachers. "There has been talk, off and on, of creating a new department in the ministry for education but nothing has ever come of it. Of course, you could also just live off of your inheritance sit on the Wizengamot. I believe you have rights to the Blackraven seat, yes?"

Harry nodded, "Yes, neither Hermione or myself have claimed the seat yet but we do have rights to it. As for living off of our inheritances, we can live comfortably for a while but my Grandfather wasted much of his wealth during Lord Grindelwald's War. The Blackraven's and Bonfoy's had a fair amount of money, but were not so great as they once were."

Malfoy nodded before interjecting, "Ah, but you seem to forget that you have an inheritance from you grandmother as well. If you do freelance work in warding and curse-breaking as well, and if Hermione uses her apparently prodigious potions skills I'm sure you'll never want for anything. She must be talented at potions, yes? Severus isn't sneering as usual. If ever a boy needed a woman, it's that young man."

Malfoy just shook his head sadly, across the table from him Lucius nodded his affirmation. Harry had to fight to keep from laughing at that, but he certainly couldn't deny it.

Soon enough the meal was over, presents were open, and children grew restless. The guests all left but Abraxas asked Harry and Hermione to stay so that the family could speak together.

By family, he obviously meant the Malfoy males. Aside from Abraxas and Lucius, they were joined by Darius Malfoy and his two sons, Damien and Diomedes. They were also joined by Abraxas' brother-in-law Percy Brislen.

The seven men retired to a large study with a house elf bringing some glasses of oak matured mead for them to drink.

"So, Harry, I was wondering if you might be able to help me with understanding something? I am, naturally, quite perplexed as to what happened that my dear niece Dahlia chose to not only cut off all contact with the family, but deigned never to inform us of so happy an occasion as your birth."

Abraxas looked both genuinely confused and concerned, obviously wondering what could have happened that she would not even send them notice of his birth.

"Er, well, I am not completely sure." Harry really wished he and Hermione had gone over a cover story for stuff like this. "Mum never spoke of her family in England, I only vaguely knew that I had family in Britain. The only family she ever spoke of or that I ever met was Aunt Léontine Purbaton. I've never even met any of my French or German relation, though admittedly they are few and distant."

With this Harry paused for a moment before deciding to go with the story he gave Dumbledore, "I know nothing of my father or his family, either. I believe," he said nervously, something which he did not entirely have to fake, "that my father may have been a muggle. Neither mum nor Aunt Léontine seemed to approve of him. I just know that his name was Tom Riddle, and that he and mother only knew each other, ah, briefly."

Harry had to hide his amusement with the varying looks received from the Malfoys. Abraxas stared at him uncomprehendingly, only blinking on occasion. Lucius' eyes were wide and he looked incredulous, as though the very thought of his former Master having been a muggle was unfathomable. Darius Malfoy looked highly amused, and had to cover his grin by taking a sip of his mead. His son Damien had no such qualms and sniggered openly while the other son, Diomedes, stroked his goatee thoughtfully. The lone non-Malfoy merely smirked.

It was obvious to Harry that all of them were aware of who Tom Marvolo Riddle was, though Harry still wasn't sure if they knew the Dark Lord's own heritage.

At last the Malfoy patriarch seemed to find his voice, "Well, Harry, I can happily dissuade you of that notion. Tom was a wizard, I attended Hogwarts with him in fact. He was Head Boy during my OWL year, brilliant wizard." After this pronouncement Abraxas looked around at the others, apparently trying to decide just how much he ought to tell the newest member of the family.

"Forgive me if I am too forward," stated Lucius at last, "but I have heard from some, ah, associates at the Ministry that during your recent skirmish with Death Eaters, you spoke Parseltongue. I was only wondering if indeed this were true, as I'm sure you can understand those at the Ministry are sometimes known to embellish events."

Or more likely wanting this extra confirmation of Harry's ancestry. Harry ignored that, however, and nodded.

"How...interesting. Your father was a parselmouth as well, he often spoke with his familiar Nagini. I found the experience rather, how to say, disconcerting yet fascinating. Salazar Slytherin was a parselmouth as well, did you know?"

"Yes, I had heard of him of course. Mother told me that my middle name was in his honour."

"Indeed? He was a very great wizard," said Lucius, "the greatest of the Hogwarts Four."

Harry smiled at this, "Really? I have heard, from my neighbours in Godric's Hollow, that Godric Gryffindor was the greatest? I have also heard that Helga Hufflepuff was the greatest, and of course nobody was better than Rowena Ravenclaw. I believe you English take your house rivalries too far beyond the Hogwarts walls."

Damien looked completely flabbergasted, "Somebody actually said Hufflepuff was the greatest?" he asked disbelievingly. The Slytherin's all chuckled at that, though Harry privately thought the average Hufflepuff likely to outdo the average Slytherin, especially with the likes of Crabbe and Goyle bringing down their average.

The discussion thereafter covered various topics ranging from his travels in China and his living in France to current events and even quidditch. Abraxas soon brought the discussion to a close however, bidding Darius and his children good night and asking Lucius to allow him a private word with Harry.

Abraxas led Harry out to a small lake on the Malfoy property where neither man spoke for several minutes as they took in the cool night air.

"Your father was a complicated individual Harry," Abraxas said at last, breaking the silence.

"I remember him from Hogwarts, very charming he was, handsome, a brilliant mind too and magical power to spare. I don't know too much about his past, not many people do, he was a very private fellow. An orphan, too. Mother died when he was just a baby, grew up in some dreadful orphanage in London, so I'm told. I believe he met his father, ah, briefly as a young man."

Briefly, that was certainly one way to put it. The other way being that he hunted his father down and murdered him.

"He was also very ambitious, and very angry, especially with regards to muggles. From his time at the orphanage, you see." Harry nodded. "Coming out of Hogwarts he could have had nearly any job, there was talk of him being a future Minister of Magic." Abraxas shook his head at this, "ended up working at Borgin & Burkes."

Harry couldn't help but gasp at that. "Borgin and Burkes?"

"Yes. Quite a waste for such a talented young man, yes? I remember being shocked when I found out, as he certainly had no shortage of options. Especially being one of Sluggy's favourites. Horace Slughorn was Potions Master up until just recently. Sluggy, he has connections, probably better than anybody I know."

Harry nodded, having no idea who this Slughorn man was yet still wishing that he at kept on teaching. Anybody would have been better than Snape.

"Anyway, one night, he just disappeared, wasn't heard from again for years. Oh, I'd heard rumours of course, I have no shortage of contacts myself. That, and some of his old friends were with him, at least during portions of his travels. Called themselves the Knights of Wulpurgis back then. I could have joined them if I had wanted, but I was more focused on affairs here at home. He visited many places, mostly eastern Europe, places like Germany and Greece and even Albania, though I cannot fathom what could be of interest there. He learned much of magic on his travels. Dark magic."

By this point Harry had noticed his tone was rather odd. It wasn't filled with awe or respect or any other emotion he would have expected a follower of Voldemort to show. It was sadness.

"He came back, oh, about fifteen to twenty years ago, a completely different man than he once was. He wasn't handsome anymore, I'm not even sure he was human. However, he did not lose his charisma, unfortunately. His supporters had changed their name as well, they were no longer any sort of noble knight, they had become something much more vile and chose to reflect that. They called themselves Death Eaters."

Despite knowing perfectly well that Tom Riddle was Lord Voldemort, Harry still couldn't help the sharp intake of breath at this pronouncement. In a second his brain caught up with him and arrange his face into a thoroughly shocked expression.

"Yes, Tom Riddle was until recently the wizard known as Lord Voldemort."

Harry turned to look out over the lake, which sat still in the windless light reflecting the moon. He was still trying to work out just what Malfoy was hoping to achieve. The man seemed little like his son and Harry began to wonder if he were even a Death Eater himself.

"It was a name he'd started using amongst certain select individuals during his Hogwarts years, myself amongst them. Harry," he said, causing Harry to turn and look at him, "I tell you this to put you on your guard. There are those who know your father's former name and will be able to connect the dots, and you must be wary of their intentions when they do."

He looked Harry straight in the eyes for a long moment before turning away and looking out over the lake.

"Not all of the Dark Lord's loyal followers are in Azkaban, as you well know after recent events. Some may look to you as a new standard that they may rally behind. You've certainly acquitted yourself quite nicely during the recent battle against two of the Dark Lord's most feared Death Eaters. There are still others who would seek to destroy you for fear that you may follow in your father's footsteps.

"Yet others will attempt to manipulate you to be a tool, for either good or evil, for their own agenda. They'll say that it's for some 'Greater Good', they'll conduct themselves as wizards of all that is good and light, but you mustn't allow them to fool you. You must choose your own path, and make your own way, and not allow any others to determine your fate for you. Be it light, be it dark, or something in between. So long as you're true to yourself nothing else matters."

The two soon returned to the manor and Harry and Hermione apparated home. Neither of them, lost in their thoughts as they were, noticed that the lights were on in the house. It wasn't until they walked into the kitchen that either of them realized something was wrong.

One of the chairs at the table was occupied, it's occupant drinking a glass of milk and reading Harry's copy of _Transfiguration Today_. A nearby plate was littered with crumbs from a piece of pie that Hermione had baked that afternoon.

However before even Harry had his wand out and trained on the intruder the paper was pulled to the side revealing the lifeless eyes of Death.

"Oh, you're back eh? How was dinner? The pie, Hermione, was delicious, I thank you."


	7. A Dog Named Barghest

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter. The Harry Potter universe is the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Warner Brothers, and any other lucky folks I missed. I'm not associated with them in any way, I don't make money from this, I'm just dabbling about in their sandbox.

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_**Chapter Seven: A Dog Named Barghest**_

The silence stretched for nearly two and a half minutes as Harry and Hermione simply stared dumbly at Death who in turn looked merely amused. It was finally broken by a rather odd declaration from Death, "Barghest!"

Out of nowhere in particular arrived a large shaggy black dog that reminded Harry of both a Werewolf and a Thestral. The dog was positively massive, it's claws looked too big by far and it's teeth would have looked more at home in a Dragon's mouth. Despite his size he was skeletally thin, with long strands of shaggy black hair that made him look perhaps a little larger than he really was. The most striking characteristic however were it's eyes. They glowed an eerie blood red with pupils just as black and lifeless as that of Death.

Harry had little doubt that he was looking at the infamous Grim. Trelawney, no doubt, would be pleased.

Death, it seemed, had become annoyed at their continued silence and rose to his feet, folding the paper he had been reading and placing it back on the table.

"Please, if you would, take a seat so that we may talk. Would you like anything to drink? Butterbeer, pumpkin juice, water, firewhiskey?" Harry was a little annoyed at being treated like a guest in his own house, and Hermione was too it would seem.

"This is our house you know."

"Is it?" Death asked, staring unblinkingly at Hermione until she at last decided to drop the matter and take the offered seat.

"Well," began Death as he poured himself a glass of butterbeer, "I am happy to see that the two of you have made yourselves comfortable, yes? Settling in just fine, I take it? Very good."

Something about his tone however made Harry think that it wasn't 'very good'.

"Have you met my companion, Barghest?" Death asked, gesturing to the grumpy looking black dog.

Both Harry and Hermione merely gave a vague nod, having little interest in getting to know the demonic beast any better. Death frowned at their lack of enthusiasm, but soldiered on nonetheless.

"So, what have you two been up to, eh? How is the little one? Coming along fine I take it?" While Death's questions seemed innocent enough, something in his tone continued to betray him but Harry couldn't for the life of him figure out what was wrong.

"Uh, yeah, she's coming along fine," answered Hermione; Harry rather thought that she too had picked up on Death's mood.

"Good, good. I've noticed you've been enjoying plenty of quiet time and hanging about with the neighbours? Yes? Do you find your new neighbours to be enjoyable company?"

"Er, yeah, they're great."

"That is good to know Harry."

It didn't sound good to him, for some reason.

"May I ask, what of the, ah, tasks, that I asked you to complete? How goes your progress there?"

Suddenly it clicked in Harry's mind and he realized why Death seemed so displeased, the two of them had completely ignored their tasks in recent months. It wasn't that they didn't want to destroy Voldemort, they did, but neither had the slightest clue how the Dark Lord had survived. Even Harry, with his knowledge of the Dark Arts, knew of nothing that could make a person immortal.

The so called Deathly Hallows were another dead end; while they were both able to toss aside their initial disbelief that such items could exist, they hadn't a clue how to go about finding them.

"You have gone nowhere in your, let us call it a quest, for the Deathly Hallows, am I correct? Nor have you bothered in the slightest to figure out the secrets of Lord Voldemort's ability to survive the rebounded Killing Curse. I must say, I am rather disappointed. I had hoped that the defeat of Lord Voldemort would be at the top of your agenda, I had thought that you were both intelligent enough to use the tools around you to discover the Dark Lords secrets."

He paused and cast a sad look upon the two, "It seems that I was mistaken."

"Wha..? No, it's just, we _have_ tried! But I have looked through all my Dark Arts books and not found a single thing that could explain it!" Harry was annoyed that Death would insinuate that they didn't try, but if he wasn't going to give them any help then he could hardly expect them to succeed.

"Really? You have exhausted all of your resources?" Harry and Hermione nodded. "Interesting. It seems I was mistaken, you are not lazy nor uninterested."

At this Death looked the two of them over before declaring, "You're merely unintelligent. A pity."

Hermione bristled at this notion.

"We are not unintelligent! How do you expect us to know things that nobody else but Voldemort does? Even Dumbledore doesn't know how he survived! You...you...how...argh!" Death's amused expression seemed to have only enraged Hermione more to the point that she couldn't even speak. Harry was silently hoping that he'd push her over the edge and she'd find a way to kill him. He was confident that if anybody could figure out a way, it'd be Hermione, she's clever like that.

"I presume you are angry at my lack of, hmm, help? Yes?" Harry nodded for the both of them, Hermione being too busy glaring daggers to do anything else. "Well, I cannot simply give you the answers you seek, the two of you must yourselves find the answers. If I were going to simply give you the answers I would just as well do it myself and send you two on to the afterlife. That, however, would be most unwise."

"Why?"

"Why what Mrs. Riddle?"

"Why can't you do it yourself? You've already done so much, why not go all the way?" as usual a puzzle that she could not solve seemed to calm Hermione down. Odd girl, Hermione.

"I have, ah, done little in reality. A few nudges here and there brought about Hermione Blackraven and Harry Riddle, but they were limited. A gentle push as Dahlia Purbaton tried to break Voldemort's enchantments, and viola, she was free. A simple nudge during birth and Hermione Blackraven lives after all. Of course, I did do a little influencing in the name department, I will admit that.

"Then of course I had to have you two meet, which wasn't that hard really. By pure chance you ended up in Rome at the same time, a simple notice-me-not on one pub led Harry to another, where he found you. Add a bit of spice to the drinks and you two hit it off in no time. That is, in reality, all that I have done. I was, I admit, rather surprised I did not have to do more to get the two of you together, but I must say I was pleased nonetheless. Wasn't I Barghest?"

The Grim looked at the two of them and replied in the most shockingly posh accent, "Oh yes, giddy as a schoolgirl he was, wouldn't shut up for a week. It was dreadful."

Harry spared a moment to take a glance at Hermione to see that she seemed to be thinking rather hard about something. Death merely smiled and waited patiently for Hermione to speak her mind.

"In, uh, in the letter that you gave us... you said that people would only vaguely remember us? That was why you didn't want us going to Hogwarts, wasn't it?"

"Hmmm, yes and no. Harry never would have went to Hogwarts so that is irrelevant, you on the other hand had a chance for either Hogwarts or Beaubatons, as your parents living in France was not changed from your previous life. I may have very subtly pushed them in the direction of Beaubaton, but it was nothing of consequence, more to be certain than anything else."

"And peoples memories?" Hermione prompted.

"Ah, yes, that was an unfortunate side-effect of my interference. It is complicated to explain to others. The short answer, however, is that my direct interference, well, it's rather like if you chuck a pebble into a lake. Doing so will cause ripples proportional to the size of the pebble, yes? However eventually everything evens out, does it not? The amount and severity of the ripples depends on how much I interfere, unfortunately my interference has far greater consequences than disrupting the water. It is unwise to send too many ripples through the fabric of the universe, it has a tendency to cause most unfortunate events."

Harry could have sworn that Barghest the Grim snorted in amusement at that statement.

"Er, uh, what other side-effects are there?" Harry asked though he rather feared what else could end up happening.

"Nothing that you need to worry about, I assure you." Harry nodded, though he didn't trust Death much. "So, now do you see why I cannot interfere more directly, Hermione? The consequences would, unfortunately, be far worse than allowing the Dark Lord to run about and do as he may."

Hermione nodded at Death's question but still didn't look satisfied, picking up on this Death continued, "however you may be sure that all you need to know is readily available to you, you need but look. You're going to dispute me, are you not? Yes, I see it in your eyes. You've read everything that you consider relevant but yet have found nothing that could explain the Dark Lords apparent immortality, am I right?" The two nodded, they _had_ looked through everything thoroughly after all.

"For all your knowledge you lack wisdom, Hermione. Anybody can be knowledgeable, you need but study. Wisdom, however, is the ability to look beyond mere knowledge. Is it any wonder that the wisest people are often amongst the most eccentric? Things are not black and white, Hermione, but many shades in between. The information you need is here, you need only to connect the dots, accept that the improbable, while unlikely, is not to be tossed aside lightly."

Hermione just gave Death a vague nod, obviously quite lost in her own thoughts. After several moments of silence Harry spoke up with something that had been bothering him. "Uh, um, Death? I was wondering, er, what happened to the others?"

"At the Department of Mysteries, you mean?" Harry nodded, "Aside from Mr. Longbottom whom I previously told you about, the others made it through alive even if not unscathed. Members of the Order of the Phoenix arrived shortly after you deaths. Beyond that, I know not."

"What? Why, er, why don't you know? I mean, I thought that, well, you know everything? Don't you know what ultimately happened in that reality? Did Voldemort win or was he defeated?"

"You flatter me Harry, but no, I do not know everything. I know all that has happened and all that is happening at this very moment, the future however is murky at best. The future, you see, is not set, it is always moving, always changing. Every decision we make, no matter how large or how small, has an impact that echoes an eternity. However it is all irrelevant, as that future no longer exists, that reality no longer exists."

"Er, but, aren't there like, you know, like infinite numbers of alternate dimensions and stuff?" Harry was sure he'd seen this somewhere, perhaps it was in one of Dudley's shows or something.

"A common belief, especially amongst muggles and science fiction writers, but nonetheless incorrect. There is but one reality, one dimension, one universe. Do you know how many dimensions there would be otherwise? Do you know how big a number infinite is? It's big, trust me, it's bloody huge. Who'd do all the work then? Not I, oh no, I'd quit this job. Then the universe would go straight to hell."

Seeing that Hermione had come back to reality Death turned his attention on her, "well now, are we all set? You two will do better, yes?" they nodded, "excellent. Well then, one last thing, my dear Hermione, how are you after your recent, ah, ordeal?"

"What? Oh, oh, I'm fine, I'm fine. The healers said that the baby is going to be okay, it nearly, well, it hurt me, but my magic was able to protect the baby."

"Yes, it nearly killed you, that is what you were going to say, correct?" she nodded, looking fearfully at a dumbstruck Harry. "I had not anticipated you getting cursed so quickly, can the two of you not stay out of trouble? No matter, you are alright, and that is the important thing. You are in fact quite lucky, throughout history there have only been four women to go through the same ordeal as you that lived. Admittedly part of that is because those who use such curses are usually disinclined to leave survivors, but I digress."

By this point Harry was confused, scared, and angry. Hermione had told him that everything had been fine and that the Healers were just being extra cautious because she was pregnant, now he was beginning to think she downplayed things a bit.

"However, numerous others have died as a result of their magic's attempt to protect the child first. This reaction is the reason you must be careful, your magic will always seek to protect the child before yourself, and it is not advisable for that to happen. It has been known to, how shall I say, cause a few problems down the road."

Hermione was looking rather alarmed by this point and began sputtering out a response before Death interrupted her, "the consequences can vary, from destroying the child's magic to causing mental or physical, ah, defects." He glanced down at Hermione's stomach with a frown, "while the Healers at St. Mungo's may be able to detect physical problems, they are unable to detect any mental problems that may arise, especially at this point. However," and without another word he reached out with his right hand, gently pressing against Hermione's wombs. He frowned for a second before pulling his hand away, Hermione had a look of terror on her face as Death stepped back. "she will be fine both physically and mentally. She'll be just as sane as I am."

Harry wasn't sure if that was supposed to cheer them up or scare them, but he was still glad she'd be okay, even if she was as loony as Luna Lovegood.

"I am afraid, however, that her magic did not fare so well," Death announced gravely. Hermione shot up from her chair with a wild look in her eyes.

"What do you mean! The Healers said she'd be fine, they said everything was fine, there is nothing wrong! There can't be anything wrong!" Death merely laid a hand on her shoulder and guided her back to her seat, apparently doing something to calm her.

"Her magical core is not developed fully, and at this point in development the Healer's at St. Mungo's wouldn't be able to tell if she were a witch or a muggle. If she was further along then likely it would not have injured her magical core, as it would be far more developed. Mind you, if she were too much further along you'd likely be dead, and in all likelihood the child with you depending on how far along you were. I cannot say what will become of her, she may be a squib, she may be perfectly normal, or she may never be able to control her magic. As I told Harry, even I cannot see the future, she is still developing and until she is older we will not know how much damage has been done. Though I'm fairly certain she'll not be a squib."

By this point Hermione was crying softly with her head against Harry's shoulder as he had gone to sit by her and comfort her. There were still a few things bothering Harry however, so he shoved his own emotions to the back of his mind so that he could speak with Death while he had the chance.

"Er, I was wondering, it's not that I'm, er, unhappy or anything, but just why is it that we, er, why is it we're having a child anyway?" Harry suspected some plot by Death and wanted to get to the bottom of it.

"Did you not listen before? I did nothing to influence that, nothing at all, that was down to the two of you. As for the how and why, I had assumed that you were already informed of this? I realize that part of you is only fifteen years old, but I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you were aware of procreation and all of that? No?" Harry, who was well aware of all of that and had no interest in being given 'The Talk' by Death, hastily reassured him that he knew very well how it was done but was only wondering how in their case. Perhaps a bad question to ask Death, however.

"Oh, doggy style."

Harry just stared at Death.

"What? You asked how. Don't be such a prude, I'm sure the two of you will eventually have many kinky encounters of a sexual nature. It's always the bookworms who are the naughtiest Harry, just to put you on your guard." Apparently Harry's embarrassment had brought back the cheerfulness that Harry had become used to from Death.

Wanting desperately to get off of this topic, Harry asked something else that had been bothering him and hoped that it would be less embarrassing.

"Er, before, when we were, uh, wherever that was before we came here, you said I couldn't save my parents? But then you did it yourself, well, er, not that I'm not thankful, but, uh, why?"

"Simple, I feared you would still do something stupid. Even if I put you at this same time, after their deaths, you'd still likely do something to free Mr. Black, thus ruining your, ah, cover. Ultimately I decided that it would be best to allow them to live, Mr. Black was their Secret Keeper this time, and the Longbottom's perished instead. Better off dead and enjoying the afterlife than insane and laying about St. Mungo's, I believe." Harry nodded, he and Hermione had already discussed this and both came to the conclusion that it was likely better for Frank and Alice. They were still concerned for their friend Neville, but hoped that perhaps with all that had happened he'd be more confident going into Hogwarts this time.

And frankly, Harry had to admit that Death was right, he'd probably have done something stupid and ruined everything otherwise.

After a moment Barghest, who had been chewing on something that resembled a dinosaur fossil, said something quietly to Death who merely nodded before turning his attention back to the Riddles.

"Well, it would seem my time is up, I've got less interesting things to do, unfortunately. Do remember your tasks, and remember to keep an open mind. You have what you need and I have every confidence that you'll succeed in this quest. Good night." On that note Death disappeared in a whirl of black smoke.

The Grim, unfortunately, stayed, preferring to continue with his exceedingly large bone. Harry and Hermione remained sitting side by side in their kitchen for another ten minutes before Hermione raised her head and looked at Harry searchingly.

"Harry? What.. what are we going to do?" Harry looked confused so she clarified, "the baby, Harry. You haven't forgotten again have you?"

"No. What do you mean again?" Harry asked, genuinely confused. Hermione seemed rather upset by something.

"I mean you never seem to care about my, about _our_ child!" Harry wasn't sure what she meant, but rather thought this must be what she'd been in a bad mood about recently.

"What do you mean Hermione? Of course I care about her."

"Well, you certainly have a funny way of showing it," she said, her voice rising a bit and her previously pale face now flushed.

Harry wasn't sure what she was talking about, but still he felt a need to defend himself.

"What do you want me to do Hermione? I care, of course I care, just like I care for you, but.. I don't know, I'm just, I.. it's all so confusing, isn't it?" Harry really hadn't dealt with his feelings very well on this subject and some of the others that had come with their recent changes in life. It was not easy to go from a fifteen year old student to a grown adult who was married and starting a family.

"It's not that I don't want a child, Hermione," guessing at her biggest fear, "I do, I always have, really. I never had a family, not a real family anyway, it's something I've always wanted. But, it's just, well, it's all so fast, isn't it?" Hermione nodded. "I don't know how to feel about it, I'm just so confused Hermione, this isn't what I had pictured when I thought about my future. Sometimes I just feel as if, I don't know, as if I'm looking in on somebody else's life, like it's a show on the tele and I'm just watching it. Know what I mean?"

Hermione nodded, "I know. I'm sorry Harry, I'm just, I'm so scared Harry. I'm not ready, not at all. What if I'm a horrible mother Harry? What.. what if.." but Harry stopped her before she could carry on much more.

"Hermione, you'll be brilliant, you always are. Everything is going to work out, love, everything. I don't know how, but I just know it will. The three of us are going to have a long and happy life together, okay, she's going to be perfectly fine and go to Hogwarts and be the smartest prettiest witch at the school. I'll have to scare off all her boyfriends, and then one day when she's all grown up she's going to start her own family, and then we're going to be Grandpa and Grandma Riddle, and they're never going to know what it is like to live with Voldemort hanging over them."

Harry looked down at Hermione after his impromptu speech, her eyes were a mixture of hope, happiness and something else that Harry couldn't exactly place. After a moment though she frowned and said, in a very small voice, "I'm sorry Harry."

Harry was quite lost at what she was apologizing for and told her so.

"You're stuck with me. I know it's not what you wanted, of course, not what either of us wanted."

Before she could go much further though, Harry cut her off. "It's fine, Hermione, it's fine. I won't say that it's not weird, being married to a girl I thought of as a sister," the two smiled at each other, obviously having felt the same way about one another. "However, everything will work out in the end, I promise Hermione. I promise. I loved you before as a friend, Hermione, as a sister. You're amazing, you're wonderful, I'm sure there will be no problem loving you as a wife. It'll just be a bit weird, is all. Of the two of us, I'm the lucky one." Hermione simply agreed with him, much to Harry's chagrin.

As it was late, very late, the two soon made their way up to bed. Over the course of the next month things started getting better, a tension neither of them realized was even there started to ease. They were still adjusting, but now both had a hopeful outlook on their new life.

In one months time, Harry would finally find what he'd been looking for, they would finally get a lead on the secrets of Lord Voldemort.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ah, there we go, a bit of background cleared up. A quick note, folks, if you want you can go into my profile and click on 'Homepage' to find my Yahoo Group. Comment there if you would like. I'll probably post my first draft of each chapter there, so you can get an early look at chapters if you want, admittedly unedited versions.

Also, from now on, I think I'll put a small note at the end of chapters with a preview of the next chapter. Comments on this would be welcomed, good idea, bad idea, whatever.

* * *

**Chapter Eight: The Secret Diary of Dahlia Purbaton**

Harry reads through his mothers diary when he makes a most startling discover. As time goes by somebody they care for must pass on, while another joins the family.


	8. The Secret Diary of Dahlia Purbaton

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter. The Harry Potter universe is the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Warner Brothers, and any other lucky folks I missed. I'm not associated with them in any way, I don't make money from this, I'm just dabbling about in their sandbox.

* * *

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_**Chapter Eight: The Secret Diary of Dahlia Purbaton**_

A month had gone by since Harry and Hermione had gone to Draco Malfoy's birthday party, a month since they had returned home to find Death waiting for them. Over the course of the month the two of them had returned to their original tasks of finding out how to stop Lord Voldemort and searching for the Deathly Hallows.

Unfortunately, Harry still couldn't find anything that he thought was a promising lead on the Voldemort front.

The Hallows were a different story. They had read the Tale of the Three Brothers numerous times and both agreed that had they not met Death himself, they would have trouble believing it. Still, they did believe, because they did meet Death, but how were they to find something like that?

It was about a week ago when Harry had a sudden absurd thought.

"Hey, remember Death's Cloak?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"Well, I just thought, invisibility cloaks usually don't last more than a couple of decades at most, right? And they tear and get old and so on and so forth, like anything else, right?" Hermione nodded. "Well, my invisibility cloak belonged to my dad, and he and the Marauders used it during their Hogwarts days, right? It was still in pristine condition though, not one blemish, looked brand new really. Never once did it fail, either."

Hermione was looking at him from her seat on the couch in wonder, the book on her lap completely forgotten. However the wondrous look quickly faded as she picked out one instance it did fail.

"What about Moody, Harry? He could see through it, couldn't he?"

This stumped Harry as well, though he wanted desperately to believe that he had been correct. Still, Moody's eye was rather special, perhaps it was the only thing that could see through Death's Cloak?

A week later and they still had no better leads on the cloak, but Hermione had been researching the wand. She'd found various references to an 'unbeatable' wand throughout history, usually found in the hands of some extremely powerful and evil Dark Lord. So far though all the references had been very much in the past, centuries in fact.

Harry had observed however that for an unbeatable wand, it certainly seemed to be beaten quite often. Hermione simply shrugged and muttered something about men and boasting about their wands, but Harry tuned her out.

Today found Harry casually flipping through his mother's diary while tossing grapes in random directions, only to have Persephone flame over and catch them in her beak. She had only regained her ability to travel by flame in the past couple of days, which she happily informed them of by flaming in just above their heads at three in the morning. Hermione had been quite mad, claiming the still tiny phoenix to be cheating for trilling calmingly when Hermione tried to tell her off. It was hard to get mad when a phoenix did that and so Hermione had taken to glaring at her for the rest of the morning.

Harry really wasn't expecting to find anything of note in the diary, but thought he had better check it out just to be certain. After all, he had had no luck with anything else thus far and apparently the answers were here just waiting to be found.

Harry was nearing the end of the diary when he happened upon something very odd. As his hand brushed gently against a page in the small book he noticed that it seemed, rather subtly, to be indented.

Odd.

He felt along the page again until he decided that it was a rune of some sort. Summoning S_pellman's Syllabary _to him Harry went to work trying to decipher them. It took him the better part of the day, with Loki bringing him his lunch, but by that evening he'd translated all the hidden runes throughout the diary.

Didn't do him much good, however.

Hermione was equally perplexed by what he'd found. Both agreed that there was likely a reason for them being there and thought that it would lead to something else, but what neither could tell. Nor could they figure out the how.

Hermione, being far cleverer with such things, took over that task leaving Harry to look for information on the Elder Wand. He wasn't making much headway though. It certainly seemed that a wand of elder that was apparently powerful beyond the ordinary kept popping up again and again throughout history, but none of the forty-seven books he read had any information on where it might be now.

Deciding that history did not have the answers, Harry turned to his new collection of books on wand lore and wand crafting. He'd spent a fair few galleons obtaining some of the books and was quite thankful for the money he had inherited from his grandmother.

The books were, if not overly helpful, extremely interesting. Harry had not known, for instance, that wands tend to 'learn' from their masters which is one of the reasons that using somebody else's wand rarely produces good results. Further reading into the highly illegal texts that he had acquired through Abraxas delved into many interesting aspects of wand crafting, including various illegal and dangerous 'modifications' one could make to their wand.

They were dangerous as in over ninety percent of the cases, the wand goes boom. Big boom.

Booms generally aren't good for ones health, and thus Harry ignored them.

While there were ways to increase the power of a wand, if you can avoid the boom, none of them would be able to compare to the mythical Elder Wand or Wand of Destiny or Deathstick. Not that Harry expected such, as he suspected Death could do just about anything he wanted if he were so inclined.

Harry rather wondered why Death even made the Hallows to begin with, he somehow doubted that Death was purposely trying to kill people at a river, it just didn't seem his style. One, apparently killing people would be quite bad for the universe, and two, he'd surely do something far more fantastical than drowning. To use his words, _'that wouldn't be amusing, not at all'._ Harry figured more likely Death had been bored, or perhaps he was either amused or impressed by the three brothers and decided to award them.

Or it could have been some bizarre social experiment, with Death, nobody could really know for sure except the man, or thing, himself.

As Harry and Hermione continued to search and search for answers, another month and a half went by.

Harry had officially taken up Hermione's family seat in the Wizengamot, which turned out to be rather dull. During sessions he was often accompanied by Saturnino Vaisey, who had inherited his seat when his father died near the end of the war, killed by Death Eaters.

To Harry's surprise, Abraxas Malfoy also held a seat. Harry hadn't expected that as he had thought that Lucius didn't have a seat during his trial before fifth year; then thought that perhaps he'd been kicked out for being a slimy bastard, as had happened with his seat on the Board of Governors.

It was nearing September when Hermione came to him with a similar looking diary to the one his mother had had, and asked that he copy the runes exactly as they are, page by page. A week after he had finished, a very pregnant Hermione waddled into the study as he was reading the latest issue of _Transfiguration Today_, which included a very interesting article from Nicolas Flamel. It only took one glance to see that she had had a breakthrough of some sort, she had that happy _'I'm the smartest witch in the world'_ look in her eye.

"Harry!" The man in question put down his paper and gave her his full attention, "I've figured it out, I think, maybe."

"Of course you have."

"I couldn't be sure of course, until I had seen the runic patters exactly as they are." Harry had needed to write them out as Hermione was unable to see anything in the book, let alone feel any indentations in the pages.

"The ones on the inside cover, the ones you can see, are as you expected, blood based security wards so that only you could open it and actually see anything." Harry nodded, he had known that security measure as his mother had added him to the book when he was only six. "However they can be beaten, of course, so it seems your mum hid the more important information behind a second set of security runes."

Harry frowned at that, as he couldn't fathom what else she could have done that was more powerful than blood. The blood wards used in the diary were not as strong as the ones that had been around Privet Drive, as they lacked an anchor and could be fooled with enough skill and cunning. Still, even despite that they were extremely powerful, especially for use on a simple diary. Harry however had never given it much thought, as Dahlia had put most of her spells that she created in the diary and spell crafters tended to guard their secrets jealously.

"It's based on your magical signature, if I'm reading these runes correctly. Did she ever give you a wand and have you cast a spell on the book?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded, "when she added me to the blood protections, said I needed to do that for it, uh, set. I, er, I don't remember the incantation though.." she cut him off however.

"Doesn't matter, whatever it was, that is what put your magical signature into the book. Of course, most witches and wizards magical signature doesn't stabilize until they're around six, hence why she did it then. Anyway, only somebody whose magical signature and blood pass the, uh, test I guess you could call it, can feel the runes."

"Er, okay, but how does that help us understand what they're saying?"

"The _runes_ aren't saying anything Harry, they're simply directing the enchantments of the book. Each page that had runes on it had one set that went towards the protection, and then another that I believe will allow you to reveal whatever is hidden."

Harry awaited the big reveal.

"We'll need flowers."

"Huh?"

"Flowers Harry, we'll need flowers." When Harry continued to stare blankly at Hermione she rolled her eyes and explained, "The cover of the book is a flower on it, right? A Dahlia, which is what your mum is named after. Each page will require the essence of each separate flower to, I guess, activate."

Hermione quickly explained how different runes were linked to different flowers, Harry simply took his word for it as he didn't like runes or flowers. Too much work for one and too much gardening for Aunt Petunia for the other. While Harry was a talented Curse-Breaker, he tended to work with what they call 'Wand-Wards' as opposed to 'Rune-Wards'.

Harry, having been no great potions genius in either reality, knew little of how one would come about the 'essence' of a flower. Luckily for him, Hermione did. Apparently one had to use various potions to breakdown a substance into an essence, which could then be used for any number of various tasks. The process was the backbone of alchemy, Harry learned, and meant that Hermione had to call upon help from others as it was both a very trick and very dangerous undertaking.

Severus Snape and Lily Potter were only too happy for the chance to help, however nothing could be done save to acquire some of the ingredients while they waited. Hermione hadn't been allowed to do any brewing for months, as the fumes could be harmful to the still developing baby. Alchemy was, for reasons beyond Harry's ability to grasp, even more dangerous.

Still, that didn't stop the three of them from getting together and talking about it all with the same fervour that Harry and James were usually talking about Quidditch in the den. Nor did it stop Hermione from adding a number of alchemy books to the library. Most of the books had been acquired for them by Abraxas, who had numerous contacts that could find the rare and exceptionally expensive tomes on the subject. They also required Abraxas' help in acquiring several of the more rare ingredients that go into the alchemical process as well.

All in all, Harry was very glad that he had found out about his inheritance from his grandmother, which was now completely exhausted. His inheritance from Constance Malfoy had been equal to about half of the money that the two had already had from the Purbaton, Blackraven and Bonfoy families. Now Harry could understand why the pinnacle of alchemy was a stone that turned metal into gold, you'd bloody well need by the time you got there!

As the weeks slowly crept by for the two of them, an awkward question arose. Godparents.

Neither Harry nor Hermione had had close friends from Durmstrang or Beaubatons, nor from their times living in France. While they had been making friends here in Britain, neither were sure they were close enough to anybody to ask them to be a godparent.

While Harry was friends with the Marauders, even Peter, he still wasn't _'one of the gang'_ as they say. His closest friends outside of them were Saturnino Vaisey and Jake Brown, however he wasn't sure that he truly felt close enough to either of them to ask. The man he was closest to since coming here was quickly turning out to be Abraxas Malfoy, but he was sure it'd be neither proper nor wanted.

After all, Abraxas had gone into detail already about how much he loved being a grandfather figure. That way he could spoil the children rotten and when a nappy needed changed or any of the other less than pleasant aspects of parenthood needed to be taken care of, he could happily hand the child off to it's parents.

However the godfather debate was soon resolved by Hermione, who asked to have Severus named godfather. The two of them had become very good friends since meeting at Malfoy Manor, something which still both surprised and amused Harry a great deal. He did have to admit though that Snape was a good deal less unpleasant in this reality, though why Harry hadn't any idea. Perhaps he'd always been this way to people he liked?

The godmother was also chosen by Hermione, as Harry wasn't really close to any of the females that he knew. Hermione and Amanda Abbott had become fast friends after her visit so many months before, with Amanda giving plenty of advice on dealing with the pregnancy and raising a baby witch. Harry didn't mind that at all, however, as Amanda was the personification of an amicable Hufflepuff that was hard not to get along with.

It was the twenty-fourth of September that found Harry at St. Mungo's pacing around a waiting room with Abraxas Malfoy watching in amusement.

James had already told him what to expect when the baby came, apparently not even the father was allowed in the room when the baby was being delivered. Something about too much magic being dangerous, which had Harry wondering how muggleborns were delivered without any complications, so far as he knew. Abraxas cleared it up somewhat for him.

"Too much ambient magic in the room when a child is born can lead to complications, as the child's magic can react violently to leaving it's protection inside the womb. However, some magic has to be used by the Healers to protect the mother, otherwise the birth can be very harmful. Nine out of ten times when a muggleborn is born, the mother becomes infertile afterwards. Perhaps even more than nine out of ten. That is why muggleborn children are usually either an only child or the youngest child. The risk of fatal complications for the mother is also greatly increased by doing it the muggle way."

Harry nodded at that, the only muggleborn he knew who had a younger sibling was Colin Creevey, who had his younger brother Denis. The other muggleborns that he could think of were all either only children or had only older muggle siblings.

It was evening before the Healer, a short dumpy woman with curly grey hair, at last brought Harry in to see his wife and daughter.

Jasmine Léontine Riddle was a tiny little thing with blonde hair and blue eyes. They had settled on Jasmine as Hermione thought it a nice name and had had cousin by that name that she liked. It also fit with both of Harry's mothers being named after flowers. The thing that finally sealed it was that the one flower not of the dahlia family that was meant to be used in the diary was a species of jasmine. Léontine was obviously after Harry's Great Aunt Léontine, who he only wished he'd had a chance to know for 'real' instead of simply in memory.

Jasmine was, by all accounts, a perfectly healthy young witch.

Harry and Hermione were quite amused and pleased to see that Persephone and Elpis both took to the little girl immediately. Persephone even flamed her perch into the baby's room to watch over her. It was, Harry found, a great help to have a phoenix around when you had a baby. Whenever Harry or Hermione couldn't get her settled down, a few trills from Persephone would always do the trick.

Their first night had passed surprisingly quick, neither having been woken up at any point in the night. This only led to panic when they found her crib empty moments after waking up, however. Thus Harry was both relieved and angered to see that Death had dropped by again that night and was sitting in the kitchen casually eating some grapes while talking to Jasmine.

"...get me wrong Jazzy, I mean, yeah, Merlin's mum _was_ a whore, but still, bad form to go shouting it out in polite company, don't you agree? Mind you, most of the gentleman there didn't need to be told, she was a _very_ good whore, after all. Magical, you might say, heh! Get it? Magical!"

While Death may have found himself amusing, Harry and Hermione certainly did not.

"YOU!"

"Oh, good morning Hermione."

"You!"

"Yes, me. Fantastic, yeah?"

"What are you doing here? And what are you doing with Jasmine! Don't go trying to corrupt my sweet innocent little baby." Hermione quickly scurried over and took the little girl from his arms, leaving a pouting Death behind.

"I was hardly corrupting the poor dear, I was merely sharing old stories. Who doesn't want to hear stories about Merlin, honestly? Besides, I wanted Jazzy to meet her favourite Uncle." Death was beaming happily at the little girl in Hermione's arms. Hermione didn't like that, though, and grew suspicious.

"You haven't done anything to her, have you?"

"What? Done anything to her? Me?" Death's look of innocents failed spectacularly, "Oh no, I've done nothing, she'll be perfectly normal, I assure you. Well, as normal as she can be with having the two of you as parents. Poor little thing. By the way, I do believe she needs changed," Death seemed quite happy about that fact.

Once Hermione was off to change Jasmine, Death turned his lifeless eyes to Harry.

"So, you've been making some progress, yes?" Harry didn't need him to clarify what he was talking about.

"Sort of, I guess."

"Ah yes, your mother was a brilliant witch. That would, of course, be the reason your father sought her aid in his quest for Herpo's tomb. I am sure that you and Hermione will soon uncover the secrets of Dahlia's diary. I have every confidence in you both."

"Right," said Harry distractedly.

"Is Master and Mistress wanting breakfast now sir?" asked Loki, who had appeared at some point during the conversation.

"Yes Loki, the usual please."

"Is Mr. Death be wanting breakfast too?"

"Oh don't worry about me my dear elf, I'll conjure up some Fruit Loops." Death then did exactly as he said, conjuring a bowl of Fruit Loops and milk before him. "I do love some Fruit Loops in the morning, occasional I'll go with with Lucky Charms, you know, just for a bit of variety. Complete with leprechaun, in fact. I usually don't bother with Toucan Sam, but I have been known to conjure him as well." Death informed Harry as he ate his breakfast.

"Right." Harry didn't really have much of an idea what Death was talking about, so decided just to ignore it.

Harry was saved from commenting any further by Hermione arriving with a freshly changed Jasmine. The four of them ate breakfast in relative silence with Loki feeding 'the Little Mistress' and one comment from Death that some old Norwegian fellow finally kicked the bucket.

"About time, too, old blighter didn't seem to want to go."

Harry and Hermione both wisely decided not to comment on that. When everybody was finished Hermione gave Harry a look, prompting him to ask the important question that he'd be awaiting her return to ask.

"Ahem, so, ah, Death? Did you, er, by chance, take a look at Jasmine?"

"Oh yes, yes I did. Quite small, eh? They're always like that, adorable too, then they grow up and become little terrors, then they grow up some more and become teenage nightmares, and then they become adults. They're boring after that."

"Uh, I meant, I mean, uh...is she alright?"

Perhaps it was the glare from Hermione that made Death answer seriously, or perhaps not.

"Yes, she'll be fine. For the most part."

"For the most part?"

"Yes. Her magic is, hmm, how do I put it? It's not fully stable, or it won't be, even when it usually stabilizes. It's only a mild problem, however. She'll be able to attend Hogwarts and all that, it's just that she'll lack the control over how much power she puts into a spell that most students have."

"What's that mean though?"

"It means, Hermione, that if she performs, say, a Reductor Curse upon a block of wood, she could do anything from giving it a small nick to completely incinerating it. She has limited control in how much magic goes into what she does, sometimes it'll be too little, sometimes too much.

"Usually each spell uses a set amount of, hmm, we'll call it power. Like a muggle appliance uses a certain amount of amps to power it, right? The amount of power ranges from spell to spell, depending on what the spell is intending to do. A particularly skilled witch or wizard can underpower or overpower a spell, though it takes a significant amount of skill and concentration to do, and is also rather dangerous. Jazzy on the other hand lacks the control of most witches and wizards, and thus will sometimes under or sometimes overpower her spells."

"And, uh, what do you mean about it being dangerous? What can we do to help protect her?" asked Harry, who had honestly never given much thought to the subject of spell power.

"Underpowering isn't really an issue unless it is done constantly, which can have negative affects upon your magic. Overpowering, on the other hand, can be extremely dangerous. Not only can you kill somebody by, for example, overpowering a Stunning Spell too much, but you can also harm yourself and your own magic. For instance, trying to channel too much magic through a wand could cause it to explode, which usually is not a good thing.

"Overpowering spells can also, ah, how to put it, overload your system with magic. It is like, if you put too much electrical power through a device, too many amps, then you risk frying the device, yeah? The same concept exists with magic, too much and you risk damaging things internally. This can range from damaging your magical core to the point of either exploding, which is bad, or to the point that it stops working and turns you into a squib, which is generally regarded as not good. It can also harm your body, ranging from giving yourself the equivalent of a Cruciatus to frying your brain or even insanity."

Hermione, pale and shaking, asked what they could do to help her.

"Not a lot, really. Just work on teaching her to concentrate on her control. Focus and concentration, they are one of the most important aspects of spell casting, and doubly so for Jazzy. Likewise, she'll need to be very mindful of her emotions, especially with emotionally powered spells. When she gets older you may wish to teach her Occlumency, as it will help on both accounts."

Soon enough Death was gone and the Riddle family was left to their own devices. The two of them had agreed to put off working on the diary for now so that Hermione could spend her time with the baby. Harry spent his time working on the Hallows or doing business for the Wizengamot.

The following February, a year after they had 'moved' from France, Harry finally got a job. Abraxas was able to get him a spot as the Junior Undersecretary to the Director of International Magical Cooperation.

Thankfully for Harry, Bartemius Crouch was not yet head of this department, and indeed, didn't look like he'd ever be. Apparently the situation with his son was bad enough this time that he ultimately resigned in shame. His wife, Eleanor, died before Barty Jnr. was released from St. Mungo's, and Barty Jnr. died not long after being sent to Azkaban.

The Head of International Magical Cooperation was, instead, an old witch named Elvira Turpin. Director Turpin was an intelligent and talented woman with absolutely no charisma whatsoever. Thus she relied upon Harry and her Senior Undersecretary, Kirsten McAlney, to do many of the negotiations with foreign officials while she focused on running things from her office.

It wasn't such a bad job, really, Harry did like to travel though he regretted having to leave Hermione and Jasmine behind. On one of Harry's first assignments he even ran into Death in Prague, where he was going by the name of Jan Hubník and protesting quite vocally against the governments recent efforts to eradicate Thestrals, deeming them as agents of the Dark.

This was just one of the many radical efforts being instituted after the fall of the Nenasvícená Kvarteto. For the last sixty three years a quartet of Dark Wizards had ruled an area roughly corresponding to the modern muggle Czech Republic. They had, surprisingly, remained neutral during Grindelwald's War and thus remained in power until about six years ago, when they began fighting amongst themselves. Ultimately the civil war ended with a group of Light Wizards toppling the entire regime and taking power. Unfortunately they had become a little too enthusiastic with their efforts to root out the 'Dark Element' and were beginning to become just as bad as those they replaced.

Harry learned quite a lot about the magical world that he didn't know as Harry Potter. For instance, the official name for the Ministry of Magical was 'The Ministry of the Realm of Merlin' and had included Brittany until the Breton Rebellion in the mid eighteenth century. As it was, the 'Realm of Merlin' was constituted of the British Isles and Ireland.

Indeed, many of the countries on the map of the Wizarding World looked quite different from those in the Muggle World. Brittany, or Breizh, remained to this day independent of both Britain and France. Conversely, while France was not fully united as it was in the muggle world, Iberia was. The Unión de Hispania ruled over the Iberian peninsula and was composed of several departments that acted much like states in America. Benelux also remained united while Germany was divided between Brandenburg, Bavaria, Saxony, Hannover, Hesse, and the Rhineland. Though the German states had been moving closer and closer to reforming a new union, after the first two failed. Then again the first two were both formed by Dark Wizards, Ferdinand Ebeling in 1798 and Gellert Grindelwald in 1929 respectively.

M.U.R.M., or the Magical Union of Russian Ministries was formed in the early seventeenth century and had remained loosely united since then. Harry actually managed to make a bit more of a name for himself in 1988 when he led a delegation of British, Breton, French and Dutch diplomats to help resolve the 'Summer Revolution' in Kiev which had turned rather bloody. It was a rather difficult task, not the least because both sides attacked them at varying points, but they eventually managed to declare a cessation of hostilities and bring the two sides to the negotiation table.

Oddly, it was Harry and Britain's leadership during that crisis which helped Dumbledore be elected Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. Hermione later told him that in their original reality Crouch had led the delegation, but that Dumbledore had come along sometime later to help Crouch and ended up restoring order. She smugly told him that back in their original reality it had become known as the 'Chaos of Kiev' and hadn't been resolved until the new year, after quite a lot of blood and death.

On the home front Hermione eventually began working on the alchemical process for the diary, but success was sadly limited. It took her a year after she started, nearly two years after their first discover, to begin even attempting the most basic of processes. Unfortunately, even with help from Lily and Severus, these did not go so well. Alchemy was apparently a lot tougher than potions, which of course might explain why there were so few alchemists.

Hermione informed Harry, quite irritatedly, that the process of breaking a substance down to it's core essence was one of the harder aspects of Alchemy, and that a lot of 'alchemists' simply purchased essences from from speciality shops. Unfortunately what they needed wasn't usually available in any shops.

That, however, didn't stop them from trying to do it on their own. It did however mean that it was going to take a whole lot longer than they had hoped.

They did however get an unexpected breakthrough in their search for the Hallows from Amanda Abbott. Amanda had been over one day visiting when she just happened to see the sign of the Deathly Hallows sketched at the top of some of Harry's notes. It turns out that Amanda had seen the sign before in the local graveyard where many of her ancestors are buried.

Harry had run across the Peverell name before, but the family had died out long ago and so he didn't investigate much further. Now however he and Hermione thought that perhaps they ought to take a closer look at the family.

It wasn't very easy, and took almost two years of research before they finally found the links they wanted, two of them, in fact. The Potters were direct descendants of Ignotus Peverell, the one who was buried here in Godric's Hollow. A family by the name of Gaunt was also related to them, but what really caught Harry's eye was where the recent family had lived and their other famous ancestor, Salazar Slytherin.

"Hermione, you realise that this Merope woman is Voldemort's mother, right? I mean, they're descendants of Slytherin and just happen to live in Little Hangleton, the same town as Tom Riddle did? I think we should go look, don't you? And at Riddle Manor, too, since we're going to be there anyway. It's possible that Voldemort left some clues there, you know, about what he's done."

Hermione agreed, so in the spring of 1987 the two found themselves in the familiar graveyard of Little Hangleton. Familiar, at least, to Harry.

"Well Hermione, Riddle Manor is up there," said Harry as he pointed towards the large manor on a distant hill. "We'll need to be careful, the muggle bloke, blimey, I forget his name, Fred Rice or something like that, the caretaker, he still lives here."

Harry hadn't a clue who owned the place, except that it was seemingly deserted now and had been when Voldemort was being resurrected. Perhaps Voldemort owned it?

"Maybe we should talk to the caretaker?" Hermione proposed, "you are a Riddle after all."

The old muggle hadn't been used to receiving visitors apparently, or at least not the kind you'd want to receive.

"Who are you, what do you want?" he asked suspiciously after answering the door.

"Hello sir, my name is Harry Riddle, and this is my wife Hermione, we wondered if we might speak with you about the manor? I am led to understand that it used to belong to my family, for a time."

"Riddle? They're all dead." the old caretaker stated bluntly.

"Yes, well, not all of them, obviously. The son, Tom, he had an illegitimate child with a woman named Merope Gaunt, perhaps you're aware of the family? I believe they lived in the vicinity."

"Them," he said grumpily, "all right, all right, you can come in. Do you want tea?"

Harry and Hermione declined the tea.

"So, what do you want?"

"Well sir, I was wondering if you could tell us what happened to the house after the Riddles were found dead?" Harry and Hermione had both agreed that Voldemort had likely killed them, that would account for why the police had so much trouble figuring out the cause of death.

"Well, another couple bought the house, didn't they? Didn't stay long, none of them ever did. People would say the house was cursed. Then about, eh, ten years ago some bloke bought it for 'tax reasons'. What tax reasons, I don't know, never bothered to tell me anything, never even bothered to visit the house so far as I know. Just sent me a letter saying I was to maintain the property, and so I have."

Harry nodded, that sounded odd and he was willing to bet that either Voldemort or one of his Death Eaters owned the place. He was surprised they kept the muggle, though.

"Do you, perchance, know of the current owners name? Their contact information?"

"Well, no," the caretaker admitted sheepishly, "no I don't. Never gave it to me, did they? The letter had some funny looking seal on it, Griggitts or something."

"Gringotts?" offered Hermione.

"Yeah, yeah that sounds 'bout right."

"One last thing, do you happen to know where the Gaunts lived?" As it happened, he did.

The two of them disillusioned themselves before breaking into Riddle Manor and finding nothing of interest. The Gaunt shack, if it could even be called that, was a different story entirely.

Harry had a hard time believing that anybody could have lived in such a shabby place, even if it were kept clean which he somehow doubted it had been. There was even the decaying corpse of a long dead snake nailed to the door.

"Charming," Harry noted, "Voldemort probably would have gotten along famously with them."

"I don't know, if they were as poor and inbred as it looked from the research? I think he may have despised them just as much as the muggles."

"Get back!" the shout came suddenly from Harry, as Hermione had been walking to the centre of the room. She quickly scrambled back by the door looking around in alarm.

"There is something, there, in the floor I think." Harry cast a few spells as he walked closer to find that it was heavily warded.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure. There is some sort of hidden compartment, beneath the floor, but how to get to it?" Harry cast several more spells to try and identify the wards while Hermione hovered over his shoulder looking on. "Well, that's not going to happen daddy."

"What?" asked Hermione with a confused and slightly frightened expression.

"The ward, it wants a sacrifice, a human sacrifice. Not gonna happen, so we'll be doing this the old fashion way."

"What's that?"

"Destroy the wards without letting them kill us, of course. There are some nasty ones, too. Oh look, disembowelment, blood into acid, decapitation, and big bang." Harry frowned in annoyance at the curses he listed off. "Honestly, I'd have thought Voldemort would have a bit more, you know, style. This is just, well, it's a let down Hermione, I won't pretend it isn't."

"Oh," she said in an unusually high pitched voice, "well, I'm sorry you had to find out that your father wasn't as evil as you thought he was!"

Harry nodded, "yes, well, we build them up and build them up, but the reality is usually not as impressive as we make it out to be. Unfortunate, really."

Harry turned back to the warded area, "well, looks like we're in for a long night."

With that he began the gruelling task breaking the wards without setting off the curses, or at least, without setting them off upon himself or Hermione.

* * *

**Chapter Nine: The Mysterious Myths of the Golden Noodle**

Harry and Hermione find something at the Gaunt shack, Abraxas gives a history on Wizarding Mythology, a friend passes away and our two heroes scheme to interfere at Hogwarts.


	9. The Mysterious Myths of the Golden Noodl

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter. The Harry Potter universe is the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Warner Brothers, and any other lucky folks I missed. I'm not associated with them in any way, I don't make money from this, I'm just dabbling about in their sandbox.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I'd just like to say that I would appreciate it if you wouldn't leave anonymous reviews. I don't mind negative reviews, especially when they offer constructive criticism, it helps me to become a better writer. I don't even mind negative reviews such as 'this story sux', I simply ignore them. However, when people such as 'Barry' criticize the story while getting things woefully wrong, that annoys me.

However I will say, to any others who may have similar fears, that Jasmine Riddle will not be Mary Sue, nor will she marry Harry Potter. She won't magically save the day due to her condition. I do have a subplot that involves her, but it will not venture anywhere close to Mary Sue territory.

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**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_**Chapter Nine: The Mysterious Myths of the Golden Noodle**_

Harry was still analysing the wards in the Gaunt shack when Hermione returned, she having gone to the Abbotts to ask if they could keep Jasmine for the night.

"All is well, yeah?"

"Yes, she and Hannah had worn each other out so they were already sleeping when I arrived."

Harry merely nodded, focusing his attention on the intricate layers of wards.

"Crude." Harry noted, he elaborated for Hermione, "Voldemort must have made these shortly after finishing Hogwarts, as they're a bit more crude than I would expect. Powerful, yeah, but they lack a certain finesse that a more experienced warder would have. Mind, that does make them a hair more touchy sometimes."

Hermione simply nodded behind him, though he couldn't see it.

"Hey, why don't you go check for anything unusual around the perimeter, just in case. I'll call you if I need you."

In reality he just wanted her out of the way, as he was planning to do things the easy way tonight. Once Hermione was gone he grinned happily and transfigured a small table like object, at least Harry assumed that it was supposed to have been a table at one time, into a golem of sorts.

"Okay Steve my good man, I'm going to have to kill you. Sorry." That was another reason he asked Hermione to leave, he had an odd habit of talking to himself or inanimate objects while working on Curse-Breaking. Harry, who was not bothered by this oddity in the least, waved his wand in an intricate curving patter before jabbing it at the humanish looking block of wood. It's 'head' was promptly removed and it seemed to be devoured from within by acid.

"Not pleasant." Harry observed.

Wand-Warding is similar to enchanting objects, as you imbue the area or item that you wish to ward with pure magical force and the spell or spells of your choice. While ultimately not as powerful as Rune-Wards or Blood-Wards, it is a versatile style of warding that that allowed for more finesse and variety than the others. A talented warder could hide a few nasty traps within the outer wards, such as a delayed Hallucination Ward mixed with a Terror Curse. That was the trick of choice for Tom Riddle when setting up this ward matrix, with a further delayed Compulsion Charm that would ultimately lead you to setting off the rest of the wards and end up killing yourself.

Harry Riddle, thankful, was no slouch at Curse-Breaking and would have been sorely disappointed had Voldemort not had some sort of foul trick up his sleeve.

"Ah ha!" came the shout of triumph as Harry blocked the Terror Curse and countered the Hallucination Ward. He couldn't help but be a little impressed by the combination, as they both required very different methods to counter meaning that you were likely to end up being affected by one or the other.

The Terror Curse can't be stopped by a simple Protego, even a slightly more advanced Contegus would not stop it. While there are other more advanced shields that could stop the curse, Harry did not have the time to cast them. Instead he cast another simple but effective shield, "Praesidimens!" The Mind Guard Charm is a very useful spell for an Occlumens, as it can be used in conjunction to your Occlumency shields to fend off most mind altering curses.

Of course, the spell is useless if you don't know Occlumency or if you've already been attacked mentally. If you're being attacked by a Continual Link spell, that being a spell that is continually active until called off by the caster such as the Legilimency Curse, you can sometimes disrupt the curse by calling upon a shield such as Protego. The Terror Curse however is a Long Burst spell, meaning that in one quick burst of magic it can have prolonged active affects without the need of continuous link. Naturally, if you've already been his with a Long (or Quick) Burst spell then there is no link to disrupt, and you're left to use a traditional Counter-Curse to negate the effects.

Having blocked the Terror Curse, Harry then had to fight off and counter the Hallucination Ward. His Occlumency did help in limiting the hallucinations to a somewhat more bearable level, though it could not stop it all. Harry didn't stop to marvel at the odd looking creature that was certainly Luna's Crumpled-Horned Snorkack, instead focusing every bit of attention he could on the counter spell.

Unfortunately, while Harry managed to deal quite expertly with these two issues, his focus on them left him vulnerable to the third spell. The Compulsion Charm.

Overcome with he sudden wild idea to grab the ring hidden within, Harry reached out for it without the slightest inhibition. The compulsion charm ended about the same time as Harry felt himself being lifted into the air by an invisible force. Harry had, somehow, retained a loose grip on his wand and had just enough time flick it upwards and call a weak shield into existence. He had a short moment to think _'Oh Merlin, this is gonna hurt.'_ before there was a flash of blue and an ear shattering crack and Harry was promptly thrown through the wall nearest wall.

Outside lying on the cool earth Harry was pretty sure that he broke a few ribs, several extremities, his nose and quite likely a nasty concussion. He managed to choke out an "Oops." to a panicky Hermione before the darkness took him.

HPEDHPEDHPEDHPED

Once again Harry found himself awaking at St. Mungo's, though this time he felt infinitely worse off. He also found that this time he was alone, or at least without anybody he knew. There was a rather mangy looking old witch a few beds down, a surly looking bald man across from him, but Harry wasn't in the mood to converse with either. Nor did they look in the mood themselves. He wondered where Hermione was off to, surely she should be here waiting by his sick bed? Then he remembered that she was likely off with Jasmine.

An hour and a half, and one dreadful 'lunch' later, Harry was proven correct in his assessment. Hermione entered along with a worried looking little Jasmine and a person who Harry recognized as Healer Jenkins, the same who had taken care of him last time.

"Ah, Mr. Riddle, you're awake now are you?" Harry resisted the urge to make a sarcastic reply. "Good, good, how are you feeling Mr. Riddle?"

"Fine." Harry's reply was automatic.

"Really? The stiffness and soreness will go away in a few days. We had to use liberal amounts of Skele-Gro," the Healer seemed to ignore Harry's claim. "Your left side will be a bit tender for the next week, so go easy Mr. Riddle. If you feel light-headed or dizzy, there are a couple of potions next to you bed, you can take those to help. You may feel slightly nauseas over the next week, that's because of the amount of blood replenishing potions we had to use, it should be fine after a week however."

Harry nodded, he certainly wasn't planning on doing that again any time soon.

"Now, I don't want you to do _any_ magic for at least two weeks, do you understand?"

No, Harry didn't understand, and told the Healer so.

"Your wand, Mr. Riddle, do you remember what happened to it?" Harry shook his head no. "The force of the explosion snapped your wand and the fragments penatrated you as you were blown backwards. You will be okay, but I'd recommend you don't use magic for a couple of weeks, just to make sure that there are no complications. Sometimes, as a wand is destroyed, it can discharge residual magic and if mixed with performing magic, can cause numerous complications. You do like being a wizard, yes? Then follow my advice."

With that the Healer went off to check his other patients.

"Daddy?"

"Yes sweetheart?"

"Were you being stupid daddy? Mummy said you were hurt because you were being stupid. Were you?"

Harry glared at the smiling Hermione before answering his daughter.

"I was working with some dangerous magic honey, and I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have."

The little brown haired girl looked scandalized, "But daddy, you said that you have to pay attention when you're doing magic! You said it's the most importantest thing."

"Yeah, I know, and this would be why. Like mummy said, I was being stupid. Too bad I'm not as clever as you, eh?"

"I wouldn't have done that daddy, I'm smart like mummy." Hermione, Harry decided, had corrupted his little angel far too much. He seriously needed to look into taking countermeasures to undo his wife's evil influences.

"Yeah, thank Merlin for that," Harry replied dryly. If nothing else good came of his injuries, at least they could serve as another lesson for their daughter on the importance of concentration.

"Hermione? Did you, er, get the ring?" Hermione looked baffled for a moment so Harry clarified, "at the shack, the ring that was under the floorboards?"

"Oh. No, sorry Harry, I was a little more concerned with keeping you alive, you know."

"Right, yeah, of course. Probably for the better, who knows what others traps he'll have on it." Indeed, it was probably much better that Hermione didn't attempt to retrieve it. "We'll get it later, then."

HPEDHPEDHPEDHPED

Harry was released later that day, but Hermione wouldn't allow him to go back yet to retrieve the ring. He did convince her to put up a small ward around the shack to alert them if anybody else entered it, he only hoped Hermione's attempt at warding didn't fail. She was no great shakes with a wand, unfortunately, despite her vast array of knowledge.

Likewise, because Harry couldn't perform any magic he also wasn't able to go buy himself a new wand yet. Even the minuscule amount of magic involved in that could have negative repercussions, unfortunately. He and Hermione did discus where to get his new wand, however.

"I'd just rather not go to Ollivander, Hermione. The guy is in cahoots with Dumbledore, I already know that, he told Dumbledore about my holly wand back, er, before. What if I were to get my holly wand again, huh? Dumbledore might get the wrong impression."

"Oh honestly, Dumbledore didn't get the wrong impression last time, did he? Really, I think he'd be willing to give you a chance and not make assumptions about you based on your wand or heritage. What counts with Dumbledore are your actions, so unless you plan on going on a killing spree I don't think we'll have to worry."

"Fine." Harry said, sounding not at all happy to be talked into it. He had wanted to go visit Gregorovitch, the man who had made his previous wand but Hermione didn't want to go all that way just for a wand when we had a perfectly good wandmaker here at home.

Thus two weeks later they found themselves in Diagon Alley visiting Ollivander's shop.

"Welcome, welcome, Mrs. Riddle, how lovely. Cherry and the feather of a particularly smug Phoenix, as I recall? Rather springy. All is well with it I trust?" As usually Ollivander displayed his unusual ability to remember every wand he'd ever sold. Harry didn't know how the old man did it, but then decided he probably didn't get out much and thus had nothing else to do.

"Oh yes, very good, thank you. I wish I could say the same for my husband's though, his was destroyed when playing with wards." Harry rolled his eyes at her disapproving tone.

"Ah yes, Mr. Riddle, very well. Which is your wand hand? Right? Very good, now lets see, yes yes, how about Redwood and Unicorn hair?" Much like the last time Harry had been in Ollivander's, he felt foolish waving about wand after wand and getting little to no results. He did notice that he was more likely to get results, even from wands that didn't suit him very much at all, unlike his first time.

"Hmmm, I wonder..." and then came the moment Harry had been dreading, and sure enough, Ollivander came back with a familiar looking box.

"Holly and phoenix tail feather, eleven inches, give it a wave." Despite his reservations, Harry couldn't help but smile as he felt the familiar warmth of his original wand. He still thought Dumbledore might find this little fact a bit too interesting, but nevertheless he couldn't find it in himself to care at that particular moment.

"How curious. Very well then, Mr. Riddle, that'll be seven galleons." Figuring that he might as well play along, Harry asked what was curious about it.

"Ah, Mr. Riddle, I remember every wand I've ever sold, every single one. It just so happens that this wand has a brother, a wand that shares a core from the same phoenix. It is interesting that this wand should be destined for you when it's brother, why, it's brother was sold to your father. Yes, Yew and phoenix feather, thirteen inches, a fine wand."

Harry grimaced and paid the man before beating a hasty retreat from the shop. Soon thereafter the two found themselves back at the Gaunt shack, despite Hermione's insistence that they shouldn't do it right now.

"It'll be fine Hermione, don't worry." Hermione huffed and looked pointedly over at the debris still left from Harry's last attempt at retrieving the ring.

Harry first noted that indeed Hermione's attempt at warding had already failed, but thankfully the ring was right where he had left it. A few waves of his wand later and he found there to be no more protections around the ring, only on the ring its self.

"Hmm, that's nasty. The ring has a very subtle compulsion charm on it, likely to make you want to put it on. It also has a withering curse, nasty. If you were to put it on your finger, it would slowly start to wither away, leaving it dead and useless. Then it would progress up your arm and eventually encompass your entire body. There is no counter for it that I know of, it can be slowed down a little, but it can't be stopped."

"That's ghastly."

"Yeah, it is. It's considered on the same level as the Unforgivables in France, and a number of other countries. Only reason it's not considered one in Britain is because it _is_ blockable with a powerful enough shield, but if you can't block it, you're screwed."

Harry decided not to touch the ring, as it was likely even touching it would trigger the curse. If he had to guess Voldemort likely put the compulsion as both a means of making the curse take greater effect as well as perhaps tricking somebody into thinking that they could touch it so long as they didn't put it on. Harry wasn't going to risk it either way.

"Hmmm, it's also charmed to prevent summoning or levitating or anything of that nature, so you can't use magic to get it. You have to physically touch the blasted thing."

To Hermione's confusion he smiled at that and pulled a long silvery object out of a mokeskin pouch he was wearing.

"What is that?" asked a curious Hermione, who had never seen the object before.

"This? It's called 'The Mage's Hand', used to handle cursed items such as thing. Made by Goblins, you know, clever little fellows they are. Damn rare though. Only the Goblins or Ministries or occasionally an organization or very old and wealthy pureblood families have them." Harry spoke as he guided the objects gripping end towards the ring.

"Oh. And you family had one?"

"Yes, it's from back in the, oh, what was it? Fourteenth century, I believe. See the family crest here on the hilt?" Harry pointed to a symbol that Hermione hadn't noticed just above his hand. It was a golden shield with a sapphire Allerion on one side and a wand of diamond on the other that had three stars coming out of it. One was a ruby, another was an emerald, and the last was amethyst.

"That was back when the family was one of the wealthiest wizarding families in the world. Of course that sort of went away when Great Grandpa Étienne Alexandre de la Purbaton got a bit too ambitious in the mid sixteenth century. He rose to power in France and ruled it for some time before attacking Occitania, southern France, and trying to conquer it. He was killed in a duel with Jean-Marc Capoue who turned traitor, I think he fell in love with some witch he was fighting against or some barmy thing like that. Then of course most of the wealth and dignity the family had left was thrown out the window during Grandfather Abélard's assassination of the French Minister and alliance with Grindelwald."

By the time Harry finished his impromptu history lesson he'd gotten the ring into a small box he brought for the occasion, putting both the box and the Mage's Hand back in his pouch.

"Well, that was terribly exciting, don't you think?" Harry asked.

"Er, right."

The two quickly apparated back to their home and Harry took the ring down to the basement.

HPEDHPEDHPEDHPED

It didn't take Harry long to discover that while they may not be any closer to discovering how Voldemort lived, they may just be closer to collecting the Deathly Hallows. When Hermione came down later he showed her the curious markings on the stone that looked very similar to the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. However he had to quickly jerk it away when he saw Hermione's hand reaching out for it.

"Don't touch!" Hermione hopped back like she'd been shocked.

"I haven't managed to lift the curse off of the ring yet. Still, do you think it's the Stone?"

Hermione looked at it again before nodding, "Yes. I mean, who would put such an ugly old rock in a ring and have that set of symbols cut into if it were not the Resurrection Stone? But, did Voldemort know what it was?"

Harry shrugged, "No clue. He obviously thought it important, but why, I don't know." He frowned at the ring and went back to work on lifting the curse, it took him a couple of days, but he eventually succeeded.

Hermione meanwhile was doing what she did best, researching. Specifically she was researching the last of the Gaunts to find out everything she could about the family.

"Well, I did find some interesting tidbits, like Albus Dumbledore met with Morfin Gaunt shortly before he died in Azkaban. He even tried to get him a new trial, believed that there was a powerful memory charm on Morfin and that he hadn't killed the Riddle's." Hermione frowned in concentration as she considered that.

"Odd. You think Dumbledore was doing the same thing that we are? Wish the bloke were still alive, be interested to talk with him. Anybody who might know something?" asked Harry, not expecting anybody but perhaps Dumbledore to know anything about the reclusive Gaunts.

"Maybe... the old warden at Azkaban? Nigel Aldridge, retired about ten years ago, maybe he'd be worth a shot?" Harry thought about it and decided to give it a go, it's worth something. He remembered Sirius saying that people went insane in Azkaban, that many talked or shrieked in their sleep. Perhaps Morfin said something that would shed some light on the issue.

HPEDHPEDHPEDHPED

Unfortunately Harry was busy at work over the next two months. It was late July before Harry was able to pay a visit to Mr. Aldridge. He was a frail looking old man with long wiry grey hair and an absurdly large moustache. Harry, who did not think anything useful would come of this discussion, decided to get right down to business after the initial pleasantries.

"I was curious what you could tell me about Morfin Gaunt, he was an inmate of Azkaban during your tenure as warden. I was looking for, perhaps, anything he may have said during his time?"

"Why?" was his simple response.

"Well, Morfin was my paternal Great Uncle. Suffice to say, there are some, ah, family matters I should like to take care of." Like killing my father.

"Well, didn't say much, I don't recall. I remember old Dumbledore came to visit 'im once, said 'ed been innocent. Rubbish, I think. They're all scum. Don't much recall Gaunt, though I do believe he mumbled something about a ring, his father's ring, if I recall. Seemed to 'ave lost it."

"Really? He lost Marvolo's ring, and it seemed important to him, yeah?"

The old man nodded, "That's right, mumbled 'bout it over and over, thought 'is dad was gonna kill 'im, 'e did. Mind, father died years before. Been in Azkaban too, ya know." Harry nodded vaguely before smiling pleasantly at the old man.

"Well, thank you for your time. There is one last thing I need to say," when the retired warden looked back up at Harry, he found a wand pointing at his face. "Obliviate!"

"So," Hermione began after he'd told her everything he'd learned, "Morfin thought that he'd lost his father's ring? Most likely Voldemort stole it after he framed Morfin, but why? Was it just because it was something that connected him to his wizarding heritage?"

Harry hadn't thought of that, "Could be. It was obviously valuable to the Gaunts, so perhaps Voldemort did take it as something to link him to his magical ancestry. Or he knew what it really was and used the situation to kill two birds with one stone. Kill his muggle family and allow Morfin to take the blame, while filching the Resurrection Stone as well?"

Sadly it seemed that their visit to the Gaunt shack provided more questions than answers. Harry felt that there was something he was missing, some link that he hadn't noticed yet, but he couldn't figure it out.

HPEDHPEDHPEDHPED

February of 1989 found Harry in his study with Abraxas Malfoy, who very well may have just given Harry the key to something that had been bothering him recently.

"...as you have experience with foreign methods of instruction, that perhaps it would help to bring a fresh perspective. That you're a fully certified instructor on the continent could also be quite useful, as you would have a greater understanding of teaching than the rest of the Governors. None of them, not one, has ever taught a thing to anybody."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. He and Hermione had been wondering if they should, if they could, interfere at Hogwarts. Things were undoubtedly going to be different from their original time-line, Harry Potter was greatly different after all. Neither of them had ever met Neville Longbottom, so they didn't know how different he would be, but if he were not up to the task of saving the day each year...

"Well, I would greatly honoured to be given the chance, of course. However, I am busy at the Ministry."

"Oh, you would not need to worry about that Harry, the Board of Governors only meet once, maybe twice a year if needed."

Harry thought about this and decided that if nothing else, perhaps it could give him a viable excuse to interact with Hogwarts once in awhile. Maybe he could visit for some reason, he'd think up an excuse, on Halloween during his first year and save Hermione if she needed it. Second year the Board of Governors would get involved anyway, Harry would think of something to allow him to interfere.

"Okay then, as I said, it would be an honour. If nothing else, I can ensure that the school meets my high standards for Jasmine. I don't think Hermione would like to see her sent off to Durmstrang." The two sat discussing the merits of Hogwarts and Durmstrang for awhile before it turned to other matters such as current events. That is, until something happened to catch Abraxas' eye.

"My, how old is that copy of the Beedle's Tales?"

Harry looked over where Abraxas had been looking and saw that the copy of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ that Death had given to him was still out from the last time Harry had looked through it.

"Ah, I'm not exactly sure how old it is, however I am led to believe that it is one of the original copies."

"Really?" Abraxas asked, his eyes were sparkling as he looked it over. Harry knew that Abraxas was something of a collector of magical artefacts. "My, it's certainly one of the earliest editions that I have ever seen, and very well preserved, I might add. Wherever did you find this?"

"Oh, I bought it off of a merchant in Hong Kong." Harry lied easily, he had bought a rather rare tome on Egyptian enchanting off of a merchant in Hong Kong, so decided that it would not be too much of a stretch. "He dealt with rare books and items. I also purchased a book on enchanting that came from Roman era Egypt, in Latin of course. Just recently I purchased a book on alchemy from him. Good guy, honest. Well, relatively speaking, that is." The two chuckled as once again Harry didn't lie, he really had bought an alchemy book off of the man.

"Very nice, indeed. I have only ever been able to find a second edition of the Beedle's Tales, however the Runes are not all the same as the original. A shame. I do however have an original copy of _The Mysterious Myths of the Golden Noodle_, which I find to be much more interesting than Beedle's work."

"Really? I don't believe I'm familiar with that work, though it sounds interesting. I take it's similar to the Beedle's works?" Harry did not have to fake curiosity, he thought that if one of the stories in the Beedle's works was true, then perhaps some of these myths were as well.

"Hmmm, there is a debate about that. Some say that they're all highly fictionalized accounts of true events in wizarding history, but there are others, such as myself, who believe the possess more fact than fiction. Though obviously the author, whomever it was, made full use of his creative license for certain aspects of the story. One of the stories is actually very similar to the _Tale of the Three Brothers_."

"Really?" Harry had no problem feigning interest in that.

"Oh, don't tell me that you're one of those people who believe in the Hallows, are you?" asked Abraxas in an amusedly disapproving tone.

"No, but it is my favourite story." Harry silently thought that Abraxas would be more likely to believe the tale if he'd met Death, as Harry had. "I should go find myself a copy, to be honest, I've never really learned much of anything about wizarding mythology. I have studied some muggle mythology, but never really gave much thought to the wizarding variety before."

"I'll tell you what Harry, when I get home, I'll send you one of my copies. One of the newer, English copies."

Soon after, when Abraxas had read through the very old copy of the Beedle's Tales, he made his farewell. As promised, later that day a copy of _The Mysterious Myths of the Golden Noodle_ arrived by Owl. The cover was very odd, it was green with the title in gold and a picture of a fish bowl complete with what appeared to be a dead goldfish floating at the top.

Harry quickly flipped to the chapter that dealt with the Hallows, entitled _'Sticks & Stones and the Curious Cloak'_ and read the story out loud so that Hermione could listen.

"_Once there were three brothers, they were considered by all to be the brightest and handsomest of their day. They were much beloved by the townsfolk, for they were also very generous. However all was not well with the brothers._

_The eldest suffered for the love of his life had been taken by foul raiders of a rival village. The second brother was likewise heartbroken, for Death had taken his beloved. The third was fearful, for he loved his wife very much as well and dreaded that somebody may take her too._

_The three were very close, so when the first brother decided that he was going to go find his wife and free her, the others offered to aid him in his quest. The second brother after all had nothing to lose, but thought it right that he help his brother recover his love, for he did not wish upon him the same heartache that he felt. The youngest brother hoped that if they recovered the eldest wife and defeated her captors, then perhaps they would not come for his wife._

_As they travelled the brothers learned that tales of their greatness and kindness had spread far beyond their own village. The others were happy to point them in the direction of their rivals, but they warned them, they must first cross the cursed river. For their rivals, vile and evil men the lot of them, had cursed the river to take the lives of all who dared cross it._

_The people had tried to build bridges, at a great cost in lives, but the bridge always crumbled. They had tried to make sturdy boats to cross, but again they were destroyed. They had used all their powers and all their wisdom to try and come up with a way across, but all had failed them._

_So the three brothers made their way to the river and with their extraordinary skill built a bridge across it. They poured all of their magic and all of their love into this bridge, for it was because of their love and devotion that they wished to cross. The curse of the river tried and tried to take the bridge, but each time it failed, for not even the dark and heartless magic of their rivals could conquer the love they felt for their wives._

_When they reached the other side of the river however, they were met by what appeared to be a man. This creature, for they realised that no man could have such lifeless black eyes, introduced himself as Death. This did nothing to relieve their fears that this creature was another vile curse of their rivals, and they were wary._

_'Come, my children, do not be scared. I am here to congratulate you on your most remarkable display. But be wary, for the path before you is one of darkness. However I shall grant you each one thing, just one, that you think shall help you best.'_

_So the first brother, intent on saving his loved one and conquering his enemies, asked for a wand with which all his foes shall fall before him. And thus did Death take a twig of Elder from a tree, and make him such a wand._

_'Be watchful though that you do not become so arrogant to believe yourself invincible, for I come to all in time,' Death warned sternly._

_The second brother asked for a way to bring back his dead wife, and so Death picked up a nearby stone and handed it to him._

_'This shall bring back the one you love, but consider carefully that death is the natural course of things, to defy it is not without consequence,' Death warned sadly._

_The third brother had thought hard as the other two received their gifts, and decided that he wanted a way to hide his loved ones should evil ever descend upon the village again. Thus Death removed his own cloak and handed it to the youngest brother._

_'So long as you wear this, none shall find you that wish you harm. Be mindful though, that life lived in fear is no life at all, and that which is inevitable cannot be hidden from for eternity,' Death warned wisely._

_And so Death bid them farewell, for now, and the three brothers went on their way towards the village. When they arrived they found the raiders who had attacked their town and a fight erupted. The eldest brother's unbeatable wand felled many foe that day, and so he rescued his darling wife. However he became arrogant after his great victories, and as they returned to their homes he boasted to all that would listen that he had an unbeatable wand._

_So it was that the night before they returned to their village, an ambitious young man snuck into their camp and slit the eldest brother's throat, taking the wand as his own. The remaining brothers and his late wife grieved when they awoke the following morning, for their loving brother and husband was dead._

_When they returned to their own village, the second brother hid within his house and used the stone to bring back the one he loved. For a year he had longed to see her again, to touch her, to love her, but when he used the stone he found he could do none of those things. For she was cold and lifeless, more a spirit than a human, and she was pained by being once more in the mortal realm. Sick with madness, the second brother killed himself so that he may be with her forever more._

_Thus was left the third brother, the wisest brother, for he saw that the elder two ignored Death's warning. So it was that he only took out the cloak in times of great need to protect his family, and did not fear that one day Death would come for him as well._

_The youngest had two sons who so reminded him of his elder brothers that one day when he was very old, he gave to them each one item. The eldest son, which he had named after his eldest brother, he gave Death's Cloak, so that he could protect his family always. The youngest son, which he had named after his other brother, he gave the stone which he had clumsily set upon a golden ring. He warned his son never to use the stone, to recall his loved ones, but to remember that they we love shall always reside within us. So long as we remember them, they will have never left, and he gave the ring as a reminder of that._

_Then one day when he was very old, Death came to visit him, and he smiled, for now he would see his brothers again."_

"Well," said Harry, "it doesn't really give us any new information."

"No," Hermione agreed, "but it does sound more like Death, don't you think? Perhaps there is more truth to these stories, do you think? Maybe there is some important information in the other stories?"

Harry shrugged, and read through the book starting from the beginning and found that it was absolutely fascinating. The entire book was a collection of stories about important people or events throughout history, and Harry was surprised to see Death pop up in several of them.

There was the story of _'Death and the Witch of Stonehenge'_ which Harry found extremely interesting. As the story goes, there was a young woman who was dying from some disease many thousands of years ago. Death went to collect her as was his job, but when he came upon her he found that he could not, for she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Death fell in love with her and instead of taking her beyond the veil and to the land of the dead, he healed her. Death knew of course that he could not continue a relationship with a human, so after one blissful night he left.

The woman, however, became pregnant. Death missed this as he was so terribly busy throughout the rest of the world with various wars and famine, he also actively tried not to think of the woman he once loved. When finally did find out about his children years later, he was shocked and appalled, for he did not know what creatures he had brought into the world.

Initially Death had decided that these half-human half-divine beings must be destroyed, but when he found them he could not destroy his own children. The children, a boy and a girl, turned out to have very unique gifts, magic. Death watched them as they grew and became wary, though they aged they lived far longer than any human ought. It was with a great sense of relief, and sadness, that he found one day they died.

Death decided then and there that, since they were not immortal beings, perhaps he should allow them to live? After all, there were magical creatures in the world even then, so why not magical humans? After deciding that Death, purely in the interest of fairness, decided that the rest of the world could use magical humans, and went about seducing women here and there, though he never loved any as he had the first.

Harry was amused by the story and wondered what purebloods thought of the fact that they may have come from muggles? They would probably focus more on the fact that they're supposedly semi-divine than that, of course.

Another favourite of Harry's was _'The Lion, The Serpent & The Dragon'_ which detailed two powerful young wizards named Godric and Salazar. One day they came upon a sleeping dragon and decided to get closer as neither had ever seen a dragon in person. It was then that Salazar dared Godric to tickle the dragon for Godric always claimed to be the bravest in the land. Suffice to say, in later years whenever Godric wanted to do something dangerous Salazar would always whisper to him _'Don't tickle the sleeping dragon, my friend.'_

There were numerous stories in the book that took place from the dawn of the magical age to the founding of Hogwarts. Stories about Merlin and how he came to invent modern magic to the Grim, Barghest, and how he destroyed an entire village simply because they helped hide one man.

However Harry could not find anything that would help them in their quest, though it did confirm his theory that the cloak was actually the same as his old invisibility cloak.

HPEDHPEDHPEDHPED

June of 1991 found a moody Harry Riddle sitting in the office of the Director of International Magical Cooperation, he was there because he'd been promoted again. A few years prior, when Dumbledore had ascended to the position of Supreme Mugwump, his former colleague Kirsten McAlney had been named Head of the British Delegation to the ICW. That promoted Harry to Senior Undersecretary. Just three months ago saw the former Director, Elvira Turpin, retire.

Thus Harry, who had worked to cultivate an amicable relationship with the new Minister, Cornelius Fudge, had been appointed as the new head of the department. This wasn't exactly the reason that Harry had supported Fudge's candidacy, but he supposed that it would do. Perhaps he could work to limit Voldemort's foreign influence when he tried to return to power. Or at least, he could work to fix any damage Fudge does. The idiot.

"Catherine!" he called loudly for his secretary.

"Yes sir?" asked the bubbly blond witch, who despite her outward personality Harry found to be quite sharp. Not to mention very easy on the eyes, but that wasn't why he hired her. Honestly.

"Tell Dillon to get in touch with Weasley down at Muggle Artefacts, they are both to meet with Ali Bashir on July tenth. Give this," he handed her a packet of parchment, "to Dillon, it should have all the details that the two of them will need. I would like the two of them to get themselves organized before the meeting. We need not look like a pack of bumbling fools, again."

"Yes sir!" she exclaimed happily before leaving the office.

That taken care of Harry called up a House-Elf and ordered lunch, one of the perks of his rank. While eating Harry thought of the coming year. It would be Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts, it would also be the year that Dumbledore hid the Philosopher's Stone at the school and Quirrell, acting on Voldemort's orders, would try to steal it. He and Hermione still hadn't quite come up with a plan on how to make sure Voldemort doesn't get the stone.

They hadn't even arrived at a plan to get Harry into the castle on Halloween. Harry was sure he could come up with some excuse to be there, just in the event that Hermione Granger needed them.

Hermione Granger brought another thought to Harry, he was going to be seeing her tonight. It seems that the job of being the Hogwarts Liaison was not highly thought of by the Board of Governors, most of whom had little interest in doing anything at all and merely sat on the board for prestige. Harry however had been enthusiastic about taking up the position, which was usually forced upon the newest member anyway.

Aside from having to visit Hogwarts every once in awhile to speak with the Headmaster about the status of the school and fielding complaints from students and teachers alike, the job also had one other important aspect. Organizing the efforts to introduce muggleborns to the magical world. Usually the governor in charge would simply delegate the task to the Deputy Headmistress, but Harry saw no reason to do that.

After meeting with Minerva McGonagall last summer the two had devised a plan for introducing muggleborns to magic. McGonagall had been very surprised when she learned that Harry had wanted to be involved in the process, but relented after a time. He thought it was fun and was looking quite forward to meeting the Grangers again. Aside from Harry: Professors McGonagall, Sprout and Sinistra would be helping to inform the muggleborns of Hogwarts.

Harry, quite wisely in McGonagall's opinion, shied away from allowing Snape or even the excitable Flitwick from doing the job. One was far too unfriendly and the other, though a very nice fellow, perhaps was not the best to convince people that it wasn't a joke. Filius, he'd found, had had a few problems in the past with people thinking he was trying to be funny. That was, until he whipped out his wand and showed just why he was a Master of Charms.

The sound of a knock pulled him out of his thoughts as Catherine poked her head in.

"Sir, Undersecretary Ainsworth is here for your appointment." She eyed his messy desk and half eaten sandwich pointedly.

"Very well, send him in." Harry vanished the food and didn't bother with the desk. It was very well organised, after all. For him, at any rate.

"Ah, hello Allen. Any news on the Outback?" Harry asked, referring to a war of sorts that had broken out between the Department of Australian Affairs and the aboriginal clans. The DAA was actually semi-autonomous part of the British Ministry of Magic. Several former British colonies that were also colonised by wizards have semi-autonomous Ministries, though any of their laws can be overruled by the British Wizengamot. Aside from Australia, there was: Canada, the Bahamas, Bermuda, New Zealand, South Africa, and the British Caribbean. The union was much closer and with less autonomy than the Commonwealth enjoyed by the muggles.

Oddly, the Americans not only broke off as per historically, but did so sooner than their muggle counterparts. American muggles may be surprised at how many of the Founding Fathers were in fact wizards, such as Benjamin Franklin.

Harry, as Head of International Magical Cooperation, had a great deal of authority amongst the British MoM's dependencies, second only to the Minister and Wizengamot.

"Unfortunately sir..." By the end Harry could conclude only one thing, Australia was run by idiots. Looks like he was headed to Sydney, seat of the Magical Government. At least he had something interesting to look forward to tonight.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Just a few things real quick. 1.) I'm off on vacation in a couple of days so I won't be doing any writing while I'm away. 2.) I'll also, sometime after I get back, be posting revised versions of the first eight chapters (and probably nine, as well, since I haven't really had a chance to read over it. I wanted to get it posted before my vacation, however.) Most chapters will be the same with only a few minor things corrected here and there, however Chapter Four & Eight will see more significant changes. There were aspects of Four I wasn't happy with, and the time skip in Eight needs to be fleshed out and done better, imho.

* * *

**Chapter Ten: Something Wicked This Way Comes**

THIS time somebody REALLY dies, seriously. Also Harry interferes at Hogwarts and suspicions arise of a new darkness.


	10. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter. The Harry Potter universe is the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Warner Brothers, and any other lucky folks I missed. I'm not associated with them in any way, I don't make money from this, I'm just dabbling about in their sandbox.

**Author's Note:** Okay, a couple of things real quickly. One, it is not my intention to portray Dumbledore as stupid, manipulative or evil in this fic. However, the events of first year are in my opinion rather indefensible. I'm not just talking about the rather weak protections, but the other issues raised by characters in this chapter.

Secondly, terribly sorry for the prolonged delay in getting this chapter out. Got busy with other things and then I was busy with the holidays. Updates should come more regularly now however, at least say once a month at minimum. Perhaps more quickly if I'm on a roll.

Thirdly, I shall sometime between now and when I post Chapter Eleven, be updating the prior chapters. Just fixing a few errors and making a few very minor changes, mostly. However Chapter Eight will likely see some more significant touches, as I am not at all happy with the timeskip involved in that chapter. I'll also seek to add more of little Jasmine, as she is barely mentioned.

**Harry Potter and the Eccentricities of Death**

_**Chapter Ten: Something Wicked This Way Comes**_

Harry had come up with a very clever plan to allow him access to Hogwarts on Halloween, legitimate access that is. As Hogwarts Liaison Harry was to meet with the Headmaster at the start of term, however he'd managed to push it back until Halloween this year by claiming to be exceedingly busy at the Ministry. It wasn't even that much of a lie, he was still busy trying to clear up the mess in Australia and also needed to organize official ministry assistance to help a rather nasty outbreak of griffinpox in South Africa.

Griffinpox were a much more dangerous strain of dragonpox and every once in awhile an epidemic would rise up that needed to be dealt with. Luckily the disease was rather rare and favoured warmer climates, it was not often seen in colder areas such as Britain. Still, that didn't help the people in Sub-Saharan Africa where an epidemic had broken out. St. Mungo's would be sending some Healers to help deal with it though, and the Ministry was footing the bill for some supplies.

As if that were not enough, it seemed that Magical Chile was on the verge of a civil war and Harry needed to keep an eye on that situation.

Then, finally, there was the Summit of Magical Brethren that took place in Shangri-La this year. The summit was an important diplomatic event held every seven years, and Harry had attended on behalf of Britain. Harry had actually been looking forward to it, somewhat to the surprise of Hermione.

He had hoped to rally more support for fighting griffinpox in Africa and talk with his Argentinian and Brazilian counterparts about Chile. He was also interested in hearing about the situation in Mexico, where the pureblood leadership were cracking down even further on muggleborns and half-bloods. The details were somewhat fuzzy, unfortunately, as the purebloods controlled the media and all information leaking out of the country.

With all of those problems, Harry's first real opportunity to speak with Dumbledore had not been until Halloween, which the Headmaster had agreed to. Harry had even been invited to join them for the Halloween Feast, which he was quite looking forward to. If Quirrell let the troll in again, he'd be prepared. More importantly if Hermione was busy having a cry in the girls loo again, he'd make sure he got there in time to save her.

Harry would be arriving several hours before the feast began to speak with Dumbledore, and was just now getting ready. He'd spent most of the day sleeping, as he'd only returned from Tibet the day before and was unbelievably tired.

International portkeys were rather draining, you know.

"Don't forget to say 'hi' to Harry, Harry."

"Yes yes, I'll say 'hi' to him, if I see him. I hope I won't, though. But I'll be sure to give him a wave, either way." Harry had been planning on getting the map from Potter if it turned out the troll was let in and Hermione was absent from the feast. It'd be the easy way to explain why he knew where she was, and he'd be able to explain that he knew about the map from James and that he just wanted to check and be sure.

A perfectly reasonable excuse, Harry thought, though he did hope that it wouldn't get his younger former self in trouble. Of course, he also hoped that his younger former self (which was rather confusing when Harry tried to think about it) actually had the map on him at the time. He knew Potter had taken the map, James had mentioned that it turned up missing when he checked after sending his son to school.

"Well, if it does happen again," Hermione began somewhat sadly, "at least it may allow me, er, her, to make friends with you again. I mean, younger you, of course."

"Was it really that bad for you, before the troll?" Harry asked somewhat concerned. He knew that Hermione hadn't made any friends before the troll incident, hence why she'd been crying in the loo. He hoped that his advice to the younger Hermione when he went to fill her in on the magical world helped. She'd been so excited about Hogwarts that he'd hate to hear that she wasn't enjoying it.

Hermione didn't answer though, she merely shrugged.

An hour later a well groomed and finally awake Harry Riddle appeared at the gates of Hogwarts where he was escorted to the castle by Hagrid. Harry was slightly disheartened to see that Hagrid seemed to regard him with an air of mistrust, but it wasn't like Harry could blame the friendly half-giant after what Tom Riddle had done to him. However by the time they got to the gargoyle that guarded Dumbledore's office, Harry's first friend seemed to have warmed up to him as they spoke at length about the creatures Hagrid took care of. Harry's agreement that Thestrals were fascinating creatures in particular seemed to gain him points with Hagrid.

"Drooble's Best Blowin' Gum," said Hagrid and the stone guardian sprang to life, allowing Harry passage.

"Enter," said Dumbledore after Harry had knocked, and enter he did. The office was much the same as it always was as Harry took a seat, though there seemed to be a number of spider webs with real spiders to celebrate the holiday.

"Ah, glad you could make it Mr. Riddle, how was Shangri-La?" he asked as he held out his hand with a lemon drop, Harry went ahead and took it.

"Lovely, of course now I'll be needing to go back some day with Hermione, she wasn't happy to not go."

"Indeed, and how is the she? And your Jasmine too, well I hope?" Dumbledore enquired good naturedly. For some reason Dumbledore always seemed interested in asking how Jasmine was whenever he saw Harry.

"Very well, I brought some new books home for Hermione so she's had her nose stuck in them. Jasmine has been missing some of her playmates though, as most of the rest of the kids in the area are too young, and the rest are at Hogwarts. Which reminds me, Lily told me to ask if Harry is getting into any sort of mischief."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled a little brighter as he said, "Not that anybody has been able to prove." James would likely be proud of that.

"How was the Summit?" the Headmaster asked interestedly, "I had heard that you were intent on gaining international support to aid the sick in Africa? A noble cause, I must say, and one that I wish you every success in."

Harry frowned at that, "It was, hmm, an interesting experience. I had hoped to be able to get more done, but alas, many magical communities are only interested in themselves." Dumbledore seemed to understand what Harry was saying, as he nodded sadly at the comment.

"France, Italy, Spain and most other European countries see it as having nothing to do with them, and don't want to expose their people to the disease." Harry didn't have to mention that Britain would have done the same had one of their dependencies not been involved. Hermione hadn't recalled much of the crisis from their original timeline, which was not so much a surprise as she was only a first year.

"I was able to garner support from the Germans, or most of them at any rate. The Hessians and Hanoverians declined, but I had some old friends in the Bavarian and Saxon Ministries who I was able to convince to join Britain, and they convinced the rest to join. Brittany also offered some galleons and Arabia and Assyria are going to send some Healers to the region. The Egyptian and Berbers both refused to have anything to do with it though."

"It is unfortunate that they will not help their neighbours in this time of need." Harry couldn't agree more, but he knew the Ministry wouldn't have done anything if South Africa hadn't been involved. "Still, you've done a most excellent job of rousing support for a noble effort, I commend you."

"Thank you, Headmaster," and Harry was very flattered by his former mentor's comments. It sort of made what he had to do a little less pleasant, but alas, it had to be done. "Now, Headmaster, a few issues.."

"Please, Mr. Riddle, you may call me Albus."

A bit weird, but Harry supposed it was okay.

"Likewise, Albus. Now, as I said, there are a few issues we must discuss," Harry began again. He was thankful for once that Draco seemed to report everything home to Daddy, as Lucius then passed on certain information to Harry. Not too much, as Lucius was not Harry's biggest fan, thinking him too liberal in his views on muggles. Still, it gave Harry the prompt he needed. "Firstly, and most pressingly Albus, is some disturbing information I have heard regarding your announcements at the start of term feast."

He paused here to allow Dumbledore the chance to prepare what Harry assumed would be an elaborate excuse of some sort.

"I am told, by a friend who has a son here, that you claimed the 'third-floor corridor on the right hand side is off limits to anybody who does not wish for a very painful death', is that correct?" Harry gazed questioningly at the Headmaster, wondering if he knew anything about children. The easiest way to get them to do something was usually to tell them not to do it.

"Yes, I believe that is an accurate accounting." Dumbledore smiled benignly, as if that were a perfectly normal thing to say to a school full of children.

"Indeed? Could you enlighten me as to why there is something extremely dangerous and potentially lethal hidden in this _school_, Albus?"

"Alas Harry," began Dumbledore in a slightly condescending tone, "I cannot reveal it's purpose. I can only say that it of the utmost importance to the safety of the wizarding world."

Harry blinked, slightly annoyed by the man's arrogance. "Excuse me, Headmaster?" Harry paused there, reverting back to a formal tone with the ancient wizard and thought on how best to proceed. "Does this have anything to do with the education of young witches and wizards?" Of course Harry knew that it did not, but chose not to reveal that tidbit of information.

"As I said, it is there for the protection of the entire wizarding world."

"So it does not, in fact, have the slightest bit to do with the education of young witches and wizards?" Harry wanted the old man to admit it before he moved on.

"No, it does not."

"Very well, then why is it here?" Dumbledore looked surprised at the question, as if he didn't expect anybody to doubt his wisdom. "This is a _school_, Headmaster," he reminded, "you're primary and indeed only concern should be for the education, safety and care of the young witches and wizards that attend."

"I agree," Harry managed to keep from snorting, as his experience had shown nothing of the sort, "however this particular case has to do with the safety of the entire.."

"...wizarding world, yes, I know." Harry may not have thought much about the whole ordeal as a kid, but now that he was a father his priorities were somewhat different. Throw in that the school was, in part, his responsibility as a Hogwarts Governor and he had a very different view of things. Harry was sure that Nicolas Flamel and Albus Dumbledore, two of the greatest wizards ever to exist, could come up with a suitable protection outside of Hogwarts.

"The fact remains, Headmaster, that this is Hogwarts. This is a school, not a fortress."

"Then we shall have to agree to disagree Harry," and that was it apparently, at least that's what Harry reckoned from the old wizards tone.

"No sir, we must not. As a Governor of Hogwarts it is my duty to see that the school is protected and it's inhabitants are safe." Here at last Harry allowed a bit of steel to enter his voice, he wasn't going to back down. Not when these kids lives were at stake, and especially not when he knew perfectly well the protections would fail. "What is in the right-hand side corridor on the third-floor Headmaster?"

Dumbledore's previously cordial, if somewhat patronizing, tone had now cooled and it was obvious he wasn't happy to be questioned in his own office. Especially not with regards to something he believes so important. "Mr. Riddle, I assure you no students will be in danger," Harry raised a sarcastic eyebrow at that, "what is there is there for the protection of all of us. You are aware of the break in at Gringotts?" Harry nodded, who wasn't aware of that? "Then you will see that even Gringotts is not safe right now, only Hogwarts is safe." His tone was firm and left no room for doubt, except for Harry who knew it was all a load of dragon dung.

"Very well," Harry would do it the hard way. He had more fun things to do, after all. "My next issue is with regards to the teaching of Potions. I have here," Harry pulled out a roll of parchment and handed it to Dumbledore, "a list of each and every student who has sat the N.E.W.T. for the subject in the last decade." Dumbledore looked it over and nodded, seemingly agreeing with everything.

"I also have this," Harry pulled out a much thicker roll of parchment, "a list of every student that sat the N.E.W.T. for Potions in the decade preceding. Do you, perhaps, notice something peculiar about the difference between the two?" Harry was sure that he did, as he seemed to be preparing himself for another round of arguing. Not that there would be any arguing with this issue, Harry had already seen to it.

"I have checked the last five decades before that one, sir, and they're all roughly the same, in proportion to the class size. You will see notations at the bottom of each list denoting class size for that period and the percentage thereof who sat the exam." Dumbledore did look, and though he wasn't happy he wasn't about to relent.

"As you can see, Headmaster, there is a significant drop in students who have sat and passed the N.E.W.T. for Potions, which happens to coincide with Professor Severus Snape's appointment as Hogwarts Potions Master."

"Yes," conceded Dumbledore, "however Severus only accepts students who received an Outstanding on their O.W.L. into his N.E.W.T. classes, that should explain the difference."

"Indeed, I was already aware Headmaster. The fact still remains however that each year Britain has fewer and fewer people who attain the required N.E.W.T. to get a job as Healer or Auror, or any number of other important jobs. You profess to work towards the safety of the wizarding world, thus you must concede that the lack of Auror's will be detrimental to Britain's safety. Not to mention the lack of qualified Healers." Harry thought that was a very big point indeed, and feared that the Ministry may not be able to match Voldemort when he does return.

Dumbledore prepared a retort but Harry cut him off, smiling slyly. "I have already taken the issue up with my fellow Governors, as well as Minister Fudge." Dumbledore did not look like a happy camper tonight. "We have decided," Harry withdrew a scroll and handed it to Dumbledore, "that next year I shall, from time to time, sit in on classes here at Hogwarts in order to ensure that all the staff are up to standard. I will also be reviewing the curriculum to see that it is adequate for what Britain needs to maintain it's place in the wizarding world."

Harry smirked as Dumbledore reviewed the scroll, which had the signature of all of the Hogwarts Board of Governors and Minister Fudge. "Also, starting next year, it shall be standard that the minimum standard for entering N.E.W.T. classes be Exceeds Expectations."

Harry would rather work with Dumbledore, but he knew what was coming for the wizarding world and wasn't going to sit around and twiddle his thumbs while Dumbledore did nothing.

"Well, now that we've got the major stuff out of the way..." and the conversation continued for another hour. Dumbledore did not seem pleased throughout the discussion and Harry hoped dearly that he hadn't lost his invitation to dinner. Happily though, the old man remembered his manners and once they were done invited Harry to dine in the Great Hall. The feast was just about to begin.

Harry searched the Gryffindor table, giving a wave to Harry and Lavender, but found no Hermione. It saddened him that she seemed to be having the same issues as last time and he resolved he'd fix it somehow. Once again Professor Quirrell came rushing in midway through dinner to announce that a troll was in the dungeon, chaos broke out, and Dumbledore sent everybody to their common rooms.

Harry briefly wondered why they didn't simply keep the students in the Great Hall and why he sent the Slytherin's to their common room, which was actually _in_ the dungeons. Not that the troll would be there anymore, but they didn't know that. However, those thoughts were washed aside quickly by worry for Hermione.

"Mr. Potter," Harry called out, feeling rather odd when he did so, as he made his way towards the doors. "Harry, do you have the map on you?"

"Uh, er, no?" It sounded more like a question than a statement, and Harry had expected more from a junior Marauder.

"I know you brought it, James was boasting just last week that you had sneaked it out from under your mum's nose." Harry grinned proudly at that, both of them. "I need it just to make certain nobody is caught unaware. I'm not sure that everybody was attending the feast."

The younger Harry nodded at that, understanding and just as he was handing the map over a sudden panic spread across his face. "HERMIONE!" Ron and Neville, who had stayed behind with him, looked at him for a moment before comprehension dawned on their faces too.

"Granger?" Harry asked needlessly. "She's here, I'll go..." then Harry realized everybody else was gone. He knew the troll would be near Hermione, but nobody else knew and he couldn't just leave them there alone and defenceless. After all, there have been enough very slight differences over the years that the troll may not be wear it ought to be.

"Stay with me boys, do exactly as I tell you." The three nodded, seemingly understanding the gravity of the situation. It was as they were rounding the corner near Hermione's loo that they saw the great lumbering beast. Harry rushed to cut it off before it got to the loo, telling the three boys to go get Hermione while he dealt with the troll.

Dealing with the troll was not as easy as one might think, as their skin is very resistant to magic. Harry didn't want to go around throwing dark curses just yet, so tried a few other things. The Reductor Curse gave it a nice gash on it's head, but not much else. Hearing a gasp behind him Harry realized that they must have convinced Hermione that it wasn't a joke, or perhaps the roaring did that, and he told them to quickly make their way toward Gryffindor Tower.

The troll, however, seemed to zone in on Hermione and with an almighty roar charged right at them. Between the roaring troll and the screaming children, Harry thought his hearing might permanently be damaged.

Deciding that the time for playing nice had past, Harry let loose a volley of bludgeoning, explosive and severing curses at the troll. Blood splattered all over the corridor until the massive beast was almost upon them at which time Harry pulled out the biggest gun in his arsenal.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The burst of sickly green light shot out from his wand, hitting the troll square in the face and killing it. Harry quickly banished it backwards so as not to have it fall down on top of them. At the same moment Professors McGonagall, Snape and Quirrell came rushing down the hall, late as usual.

"What is going on here!" screeched McGonagall as she stared at the newly dead troll. "Mr. Riddle! What are these children doing out of their common rooms?"

Harry noticed that Quirrell's face looked up confusedly, he had not been at the feast when Dumbledore introduced him and apparently had not heard of him otherwise. Harry briefly wondered what was going through Voldemort's mind at that moment, but decided that dwelling on that and not answering McGonagall would be most unwise.

"Ah, Professor, I had noticed during the course of the feast that Miss Granger was not present." McGonagall gave Harry a questioning look, which only grew as she noticed the three boys had a similar look on their own faces. Harry decided to elaborate, "As you may recall, I was the one who did Miss Granger's introduction to the wizarding world. I founder her most engaging and was hoping to ask her how she's adjusting to Hogwarts." McGonagall seemed to buy that.

"When Professor Quirrell," Harry nodded to the man in question, "informed us of the troll I asked Mr. Potter if he knew where Miss Granger was, as I knew she had been sorted into Gryffindor." Thankfully the younger Harry seemed to catch on that he was covering up for the Map, and nudged a confused Ron and whispered into his ear. Neville, Harry noted, seemed to be distracted by a headache.

"They had heard that she was in the loo, and so I came to retrieve her as she did not know of the troll. However by that time the rest of the students and staff had gone, and I felt it would not be wise to leave the boys alone so asked them to accompany me." McGonagall eyed Harry sternly for a few moments before questioning the children, who all agreed with Harry's version of events.

"Very well Mr. Riddle, though I wish you hadn't felt the need to use that curse in front of the children." Harry managed to refrain from rolling his eyes, somehow. It's not as if he did not try, but trolls are not exactly easy to deal with. "You four," she said to the children, "will follow me back to Gryffindor Tower. Severus, Quirinus, if you would deal with that thing," she gestured distastefully towards the dead troll. "Mr. Riddle, I believe your business is done here?"

"Almost, I just had one quick thing to investigate and I shall be done with my duties." Harry was beginning to think that his former Head of House did not like him. Perhaps she knew who Tom Riddle was, or perhaps Dumbledore had told her how the meeting went earlier that evening. Harry didn't know, and right now he wasn't overly concerned as he made his way to the third-floor corridor.

Upon reaching the corridor in question he unlocked the door with an easy Alohomora and took one look at a very foul tempered Fluffy and closed it back up. Uttering spell to relock the door as it had been before, Harry made his way home for the night. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day, after all.

Convincing Fudge that the matter of the third-floor corridor needing to be investigated was easy, the man was more than willing to see Dumbledore brought down a peg. Convincing Amelia Bones and Rufus Scrimgeour, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Chief Auror respectively, was much easier than Harry had thought it would be. Of course Madam Bones had a niece attending Hogwarts while Scrimgeour was every bit the politician as Fudge, so he really ought not have been surprised.

Amelia Bones even requested to come with him, to assess Dumbledore's claims that it was for the safety of the wizarding world. Scrimgeour sent two Aurors and a trainee, Aurors Shacklebolt and Dawlish would be accompanied by a promising young recruit named Tonks.

They arrived at the end of lunch the next day, which was Saturday the second of November. Being a Saturday the students were mostly off goofing around and seemed interested in what the group from the Ministry were doing at Hogwarts. They found Dumbledore in his office, believing it polite to tell the Headmaster that they'd be investigating the third-floor corridor and giving him the chance tell them what it was about. Predictable, Dumbledore refused to divulge and tried to convince them that the matter did not need investigated.

Suffice to say, nobody paid his claims too much attention and they made their way to where Fluffy was hidden.

A flick of the wand and Bones had the door open, raising her eyebrow so highly at the rather pathetic locking charm that her monocle nearly fell out. Nobody scoffed at Fluffy however, who was wide awake with all three heads growling viciously.

"If you'll allow me, Madam Bones?" Harry asked, conjuring a harp that quickly put the Cerberus to sleep. "Hellhounds are known to fall to sleep at the sound of music," Harry enlightened his companions wisely. "Haven't you ever heard the story of Cerberus?"

Bones, who wasn't in the mood for such, flicked her wand again and the trap door popped open. They attempted to see what was at the bottom, but couldn't see anything even with shining light down there. Harry suspected an illusion charm of some sort was interfering, and simply jumped down. He heard Bones ordering Dawlish to stay behind and make sure that nobody attempted to follow them, which Harry thought was clever of her. He wasn't sure how to get back up once they'd got the stone, as thinking ahead wasn't his strong point.

"Oi, what is this?" asked Tonks after she had landed.

"Devil's Snare, Trainee, not the cleverest idea, I mean, it's not terribly difficult to deal with is it?" Harry thought aloud. Tonks didn't seem to agree with him until Harry, Bones and Shacklebolt all conjured some flames and the deadly plant let go of them. "Would have had more luck just letting them drop and break their legs. First years would know how to deal with a Devil's Snare." From Tonks' blush, he figured she wasn't up on her Herbology and Kingsley seemed to agree, giving the trainee a disapproving frown.

"Come on," he said to the others and led them to the key room. Harry hadn't really recalled the keys having such sharp points on them when he was here last time, but assumed that they must have. Would certainly have made it tricky to get the door open when they all attacked, had he not had help or the ability to conjure a large wooden shield that covered them all. As it was, the difficult part was getting the key in the first place.

Thankfully, Kingsley had that dealt with as he had brought a shrunken broom just in case. Otherwise, the keys were charmed against summoning or similar spells. Harry, as the best flyer of the lot, was able to quickly locate the proper key and grab it. The door was soon open and just as quickly closed to prevent being stabbed by incoming keys and they made their way to the chess board.

Once again, it was absurdly easily dealt with. They didn't bother trying to play their way across, as it was an incredibly daft thing to do in Harry's opinion. Instead Bones Confunded the chess set which allowed them to safely walk across the board to the now unlocked door. The troll was dealt with by four concurrent blasting curses to it's head and only Snape's defence still stood.

This was the only obstacle that actually posed the quartet any sort of problem, as they examined the flame spell for a good fifteen minutes before giving it up as a bad job. Harry, nor the others apparently, had never come across whatever spell was used. Instead they all took a small sip of the potion to take them through to the next room, which Harry was able to easily identify as he'd reviewed the memory the night before.

Last, but certainly not least, was the Mirror of Erised.

"I don't get it," said Tonks, "what's so special about this mirror?"

"I don't think that it's the mirror it's self that is being guarded, Miss Tonks," Harry smiled gently at the young Auror. "However, the mirror is a very powerful magical artefact, the Mirror of Erised. Do you know what it does, Miss Tonks?" Harry was wondering if any of them would be able to work the mirror, as he didn't want to appear to do everything himself.

"Er, show a reflection?" Harry had to chuckle at that, and gestured for her to stand before the mirror properly. "Huh? Weird, it just shows me putting some dumb gem in my pocket. I mean, a bloody huge one, like a ruby, and now it's not doing anything."

"Really? Could you check your pocket?" She did so and let out a gasp of surprise as she pulled the stone from her pocket, holding it for all to see.

"Is that...?" Madam Bones didn't seem to want to say what she thought it was, but Harry could tell she knew what she was looking at.

"The Philosopher's Stone?" he asked rhetorically, "It could be. It's not a ruby, at any rate." He smiled kindly at Tonks, who blushed, though out of embarrassment or something else Harry didn't know.

"This is what Dumbledore is keeping safe? What does it have to do with the safety of the wizarding world?" Just as she was asking that, a flash of flame brought Albus Dumbledore and two people that Harry had never met before into the chamber.

Harry may not have met them before, but he instantly knew who they were, Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel.

"Trainee, if you would be so kind as to give Mr. Flamel his pet rock." Harry knew that Dumbledore, and perhaps the Flamel's, would be suspicious that Harry was doing all of this on behalf of his father. He thought that getting the stone back to Flamel quickly would help put those fears to rest. Flamel didn't even bother hiding his inspection of the stone, but seemed to be satisfied as he nodded to Dumbledore and put it in his pocket.

"Okay Dumbledore, enough with your games, what the hell is going on here?" Amelia Bones was not happy that her niece, and all the children, were potentially being put in danger by Dumbledore to protect his mentor's pet rock. Even if it was one of the most powerful magical artefacts in the world.

Dumbledore seemed on the verge of protest when Flamel spoke up in a surprisingly soft voice that seemed to convey his age and wisdom. "Sometimes, Albus, it is best to be open rather than guard all of your secrets." Harry couldn't agree more.

"Very well. You will recall the break in at Gringotts?" they all nodded. "The stone had been in that vault until earlier that day when I had it brought here to Hogwarts. It was, and still is, my belief that Lord Voldemort was going to attempt to steal the stone in order to reclaim a physical body." Harry frowned but the other three all looked incredulous at that assertion.

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is dead Albus, destroyed by the Longbottom boy."

"His body was destroyed, Amelia, but I assure you he is not dead, all he needs is a new body and he will be back to wreaking havoc on the wizarding world. That is why the Stone must be protected at all costs, if Voldemort was allowed to use it he would be returned to his body and his Death Eaters would flock back to him." Harry was wondering just how much Dumbledore knew about how Voldemort had managed to survive that night, but he didn't think Dumbledore would be willing to share.

"And you didn't think to alert the Ministry to these suspicions, Dumbledore?" Amelia Bones was definitely not happy about that. She was not done yet however, "Not only that, Dumbledore, but you were putting a school full of children at risk! I'm not talking about that blasted beast upstairs," she stated as Dumbledore looked to refute Fluffy's danger, "I'm talking about potentially luring You-Know-Who into this castle!"

Harry had to concede that she had a point. If Voldemort was clever enough to know that the Stone was not only at Gringotts but also the exact vault it was in; then knowing it was at Hogwarts wouldn't be too difficult most likely. Of course, Harry also knew that Voldemort was currently in the castle, but didn't share that information.

Dumbledore quickly set out to assure that he was being careful. "Amelia, I assure you that I would know if Lord Voldemort had attempted to breach the castle wards, I take the safety of my students most seriously." The twinkle had left the Headmaster's eyes as he finished firmly, flashing a slight glare in Harry's direction, most likely for the previous night. Harry wondered if Dumbledore honestly did not know that Quirrell was being possessed by the spirit of the Dark Lord.

"It is not the You-Know-Who in person that you should worry about, Dumbledore, even weak he is bound to have his followers. Otherwise he would not have come back to Britain." Harry and the Aurors nodded in agreement with Bones, who seemed to be busy considering who in the castle could be doing Voldemort's dirty work. "Somebody had visited that beast upstairs recently, there were traces of blood on the floor that looked not more than a few days old." Harry was honestly surprised by that, he hadn't noticed anything but then he assumed that was why Amelia Bones was where she was.

By now the Head of the DMLE had begun pacing back in forth, obviously trying to solve this riddle. "It was Quirrell, was it not, who informed the school that the troll had been let in? Why had he not been at dinner?"

"Quirinus was working on a potion in the dungeons for use during his defence classes; the Serene Submission Solution to help teach our seventh years what it feels like to be under the Imperius Curse and how to fight it. He had been late to dinner for the past two weeks, as he chose to tend to the potion during that time." Harry was surprised by this, he hadn't realized that during his first year but then he kind of figured that he'd missed a lot. He had only been eleven, after all.

"Very well. Still, there is Severus Snape..." here she was cut off by Dumbledore.

"Severus was cleared of all charges, as you may recall Madam Bones."

"Based only on your testimony that he had turned sides, Headmaster," retorted the old witch, it was obvious she wasn't convinced. "You don't just leave the service of You-Know-Who, Dumbledore. Death Eaters don't just miraculously see the light and change their ways."

"Severus came to me offering valuable information that helped protect the Potters and Longbottoms, at great personal risk, Madam Bones. Since then he faithfully acted as a spy in Lord Voldemort's ranks and saved countless lives." As usual Dumbledore was not willing to hear anything against his pet Death Eater, which didn't really surprise Harry.

"Do those lives make up for the countless lives he undoubtedly took as a servant of You-Know-Who?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. Harry thought it was a good question, as he was always willing to believe the worst in Snape.

"Severus greatly regretted joining Lord Voldemort, he showed great remorse and I would trust him with my life." Again Dumbledore's tone declared that that was final and he'd hear no more arguments, but Bones seemed to have given up on convincing him to watch out for the Potion's Master.

"Somebody let a troll into the castle, Albus, and I expect that same somebody is the one who tried to get by that three headed beast upstairs and was injured in doing so. Whoever it is will most likely be taking orders from You-Know-Who, that is if your theory is right and it's not just some other wizard looking to steal the Philosopher's Stone. I was under the impression that there have been numerous attempts throughout the years." When Bones looked toward the Flamels significantly, who had been standing back out of the way and simply watching the proceedings, Nicolas nodded that indeed she was correct.

"Who else could have let the troll in? Flitwick, Sprout or McGonagall? Doubtful. Vector, Trelawney, Sinistra, Penrose and Babbling are not likely to have the knowledge or skill to bring a troll into the castle. The same for Hooch as well. Professor Kettleburn and Rubeus Hagrid would have the know how, but I don't see a motive with either of them. Filch is a squib so he can be ruled out, I think." Harry was glad that Bones didn't suspect Hagrid, he had no doubt that if somebody like Fudge or Umbridge had been there they'd be pointing at the friendly half-giant.

"So who else besides Professors Quirrell and Snape would have had the knowledge and, potentially, inclination to do so?" Harry was slightly nervous due to the fact that he _was_ in the castle that night, and is powerful enough and knowledgeable enough to have let the troll in if he had wanted to.

"Aside from myself," stated Dumbledore, and Harry knew what was coming next, "only Mr. Riddle was inside the castle other than staff and students."

Bones turned and looked at Harry, "I was meeting with the Headmaster on behalf of the Board of Governors, and was in either the Headmaster's or Mr. Hagrid's presence the entire time, ma'am. Aside from when I rescued Ms. Granger from the troll, during which time I was in the presence of Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom and Mr. Weasley." If Dumbledore was trying to put suspicion on Harry, or worse, had genuine suspicions of Harry, then he thought that that ought to clear things up nicely.

Madam Bones nodded in acceptance of Harry's alibi and turned back to Dumbledore. "I'm going to call in a team from Magical Law Enforcement Dumbledore, and examine the blood samples if we can. I will also need to speak with Professor Quirrell and, perhaps, Snape." Dumbledore sighed and agreed to her demands.

"Mr. and Mrs. Flamel, your going to need to find another place to hide the stone, I will not allow these children to be put at risk for your sake." The Flamels, thankfully, were completely understanding of Madam Bones' requests and Harry wondered if they would destroy it again or not.

Amelia Bones never got to interrogate Quirinus Quirrell however, as he mysteriously disappeared the following morning. The blood found near Fluffy was deemed too contaminated for magic to decipher who it had come from, but the disappearance of Quirrell seemed to suggest that it was he who was behind the attack.

Harry was mildly concerned that Quirrell had fled and was likely still alive with Voldemort out there somewhere, it would make understanding future events all the more difficult. He didn't know if Voldemort would continue to look for the Philosopher's Stone or have Quirrell resurrect him in the same manner that he did during Harry's fourth year.

Initially Harry had thought they still had a few years before having to deal with that, however as Hermione reminded him Voldemort did not know that Neville would still be protected by his mother's charm. Harry didn't even know if Neville's situation was the same as his, as the facts of what happened were sketchy at best. However, Neville's scar and the fact that he seemed to get a headache by being near Quirrell suggested to Harry that it was the same.

Still, the notion that Voldemort was still out there with a loyal servant did not sit well with either Harry or Hermione, and it was constantly in the back of their thoughts.

However something else happened during the spring of that year, Harry received word that Abraxas Malfoy had died due to a severe case of the dragonpox.


End file.
